Brain, Vol 120, Issue 10 1779-1791, Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press
GR Fink, PW Halligan, JC Marshall, CD Frith, RS Frackowiak and RJ Dolan
We investigated the functional anatomy involved in sustaining or switching
visual attention between different perceptual levels, using functional
imaging measures of neural activity. Two experiments were carried out using
hierarchically organized letters (i.e. large letters made out of small
letters). In a divided-attention task, subjects were required to switch
attention between local and global levels. The number of successive stimuli
for which subjects had to sustain attention to either the global or local
level co-varied significantly with temporal-parietal activations
bilaterally. Other activations were also observed in the right
orbitofrontal cortex, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the
right middle temporal gyrus. The number of switches between levels
co-varied significantly with activations in the left supplementary motor
area and the left medial parietal cortex. In the directed-attention task,
subjects were required to attend to either the global or local level of the
stimuli throughout all trials; attention to the global aspect resulted in
significant activation of the right lingual gyrus while attention to the
local aspect significantly activated the left inferior occipital cortex. We
suggest that left hemisphere activations with increasing numbers of
switches between perceptual levels reflect increased demands on an
executive attentional system, while sustained attention to either level
activates a predominantly right hemispheric network involving
temporal-parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal regions. Overall, the results
provide evidence for relative hemispheric specialization for global and
local processing in accordance with previous neuropsychological studies. In
addition, the findings demonstrate that early visual processing mechanisms
in the prestriate cortex are influenced by an attentional system in
temporal-parietal areas.
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Neural mechanisms involved in the processing of global and local aspects of hierarchically organized visual stimuli
Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, London, UK.
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