Voluntary aspects of attentional control setting for detecting a feature-dened target

Authors: Yokosawa K.; Kumada T.

Source: Japanese Psychological Research, Volume 45, Number 1, February 2003 , pp. 1-14(14)

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Abstract:

Singleton targets that differ from distractors in a single salient attribute can be discerned regardless of the number of items in the display. Recent studies have indicated that the perception of singleton targets is facilitated by an attentional control setting. We focused on the voluntary aspect of the attentional control setting. Psychophysical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments examined the temporal characteristics of the attentional control setting by using an auditory cue. In both experiments, an auditorily cued feature-search task was used. The cue validity (valid vs. neutral) and the cue lead time (CLT) were varied. In the psychophysical experiment, we established the effect of a symbolic cue on detection of a singleton. When the CLT was short or the cue was neutral, there was no facilitation, as re fllig

ected by the slow activation of the attentional control setting. In our fMRI experiment, the brain activity indicates that this detection task activated the prefrontal cortex. These results demonstrate that the attentional control setting for facilitation of the singleton-target perception modulates activity in regions of the prefrontal cortex.

Keywords: voluntary control; attentional control setting; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); feature search; singleton target

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5884.00028

Affiliations: 1: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Higashi, Tsukuba 305-8566, Japan

Publication date: 2003-02-01