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A central role for the lateral prefrontal cortex in goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention

Nature Neuroscience volume 13, pages 507–512 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Attention is the process that selects which sensory information is preferentially processed and ultimately reaches our awareness. Attention, however, is not a unitary process; it can be captured by unexpected or salient events (stimulus driven) or it can be deployed under voluntary control (goal directed), and these two forms of attention are implemented by largely distinct ventral and dorsal parieto-frontal networks. For coherent behavior and awareness to emerge, stimulus-driven and goal-directed behavior must ultimately interact. We found that the ventral, but not dorsal, network can account for stimulus-driven attentional limits to conscious perception, and that stimulus-driven and goal-directed attention converge in the lateral prefrontal component of that network. Although these results do not rule out dorsal network involvement in awareness when goal-directed task demands are present, they point to a general role for the lateral prefrontal cortex in the control of attention and awareness.

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Figure 1: SiB experiment (Experiment 1).
Figure 2: SiB experiment (Experiment 1) SPM.
Figure 3: Stimulus-driven and goal-directed attention activity in Experiment 1.
Figure 4: Spatial SiB experiment (Experiment 2).
Figure 5: Endogenous cueing task experiment (Experiment 3).

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Change history

  • 14 March 2010

    In the version of this article initially published online, the last sentence of the abstract read “suggest to” instead of “point to”. The error has been corrected for all versions of this article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Rogers, J. Swisher and E. Conser. This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant 0094992 and National Institute of Mental Health grant R01 MH70776 (R.M.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

    Christopher L Asplund, J Jay Todd, Andy P Snyder & René Marois

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    J Jay Todd

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  1. Christopher L Asplund
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  2. J Jay Todd
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Contributions

C.L.A. designed and performed experiments, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript. J.J.T. and A.P.S. designed and performed experiments. R.M. designed experiments and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Christopher L Asplund or René Marois.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Asplund, C., Todd, J., Snyder, A. et al. A central role for the lateral prefrontal cortex in goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention. Nat Neurosci 13, 507–512 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2509

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