Center for Studies of Psychological Application and School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, 52425, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2017 Oct;38(10):4996-5018. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23709. Epub 2017 Jun 27.
Changes in the size of the attentional focus and task difficulty often co-vary. Nevertheless, the neural processes underlying the attentional spotlight process and task difficulty are likely to differ from each other. To differentiate between the two, we parametrically varied the size of the attentional focus in a novel behavioral paradigm while keeping visual processing difficulty either constant or not. A behavioral control experiment proved that the present behavioral paradigm could indeed effectively manipulate the size of the attentional focus per se, rather than affecting purely perceptual processes or surface processing. Imaging results showed that neural activity in a dorsal frontoparietal network, including right superior parietal cortex (SPL), was positively correlated with the size of the attentional spotlight, irrespective of whether task difficulty was constant or varied across different sizes of attentional focus. In contrast, neural activity in the ventral frontoparietal network, including the right inferior parietal cortex (IPL), was positively correlated with increasing task difficulty. Data suggest that sub-regions in parietal cortex are differentially involved in the attentional spotlight process and task difficulty: while SPL was involved in the attentional spotlight process independent of task difficulty, IPL was involved in the effect of task difficulty independent of the attentional spotlight process. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4996-5018, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
注意焦点大小和任务难度的变化通常是共同变化的。然而，注意焦点过程和任务难度的神经过程很可能彼此不同。为了将两者区分开来，我们在一个新的行为范式中参数化地改变了注意焦点的大小，同时保持视觉处理难度不变或不变。一项行为控制实验证明，目前的行为范式确实可以有效地单独操纵注意焦点的大小，而不是影响纯粹的感知过程或表面处理。成像结果表明，包括右侧顶上回（SPL）在内的背侧额顶网络中的神经活动与注意焦点的大小呈正相关，无论任务难度是否在不同的注意焦点大小之间保持不变。相比之下，腹侧额顶网络中的神经活动，包括右侧顶下小叶（IPL），与任务难度的增加呈正相关。数据表明，顶叶皮层的亚区在注意焦点过程和任务难度中存在差异：虽然 SPL 参与了与任务难度无关的注意焦点过程，而 IPL 则参与了与注意焦点过程无关的任务难度的影响。人类大脑映射 38:4996-5018,2017。© 2017 威利父子公司。
