Voluntary and involuntary attention affect face discrimination differently.

Full Abstract

Do voluntary (endogenous) and involuntary (exogenous) attention have the same perceptual consequences? Here we used fMRI to examine activity in the fusiform face area (FFA--a region in ventral visual cortex responsive to faces) and frontal-parietal areas (dorsal regions involved in spatial attention) under voluntary and involuntary spatial cueing conditions. The trial and stimulus parameters were identical for both cueing conditions. However, the cue predicted the location of an upcoming target face in the voluntary condition but was nonpredictive in the involuntary condition. The predictable cue condition led to increased activity in the FFA compared to the nonpredictable cue condition. These results show that voluntary attention leads to more activity in areas of the brain associated with face processing than involuntary attention, and they are consistent with differential behavioral effects of attention on recognition-related processes.

Author information

Author/s: Esterman, Michael (M); Prinzmetal, William (W); DeGutis, Joseph (J); Landau, Ayelet (A); Hazeltine, Eliot (E); Verstynen, Timothy (T); Robertson, Lynn (L);

Affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States. esterman(-atsign-)jhu.edu

Grants: R01 EY016975-05A2 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Neuropsychologia (Neuropsychologia), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Mar; vol 46 (issue 4) : pp 1032-40

Dates: Created 2008/02/25; Completed 2008/06/12; Revised 2009/01/05;

PMID: 18166203, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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