Cited research: J. Neurosci. 30, 6072–6079 (2010)

People can ignore the most attention-grabbing object in the room thanks to a neural circuit that dampens perception of such distractions.

Carmel Mevorach at the University of Birmingham, UK, and his colleagues asked 12 volunteers to perform a visual task in which they had to focus on a less prominent stimulus presented among more obvious ones. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor the left occipital pole, a part of the brain involved in visual processing in the task. They also used a technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation to lower the activity in a brain region involved in attention, the left intraparietal sulcus.

The researchers show that this attention region directly suppresses activity in the visual-processing area when prominent distractions need to be ignored. This neural circuitry may be disrupted in attention-deficit disorders and even in ageing, the authors say.