Attentional Processing. The Brain'S Art Of Mindfulness (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience) - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

The familiar experience of attention - the emphasis on a particular mental activity so that it "fills the mind" - has been subjected to much scientific inquiry since the 1970s. This text provides a systematic view of the attention process as it occurs in everyday perception, thinking and action. Drawing from a variety of research methods and findings from cognitive psychology, neurobiology and computer science, it presents a synthesis of current knowledge about attentional processing. It explores how we are able to restrict the input of extraneous and confusing information or prepare to process a future stimulus in order to take effective action. As well as describing the pathways in the cortex presumed to be involved in attentional processing, the text examines the hypothesis that two subcortical structures, the superior colliculus and the thalamus, contain circuit mechanisms that embody an algorithm of attention. In addition, it discusses various ways of posing the problem, from an information-processing description of how attention works to a consideration of some of the cognitive and behavioural consequences of the brain's computations, such as desiring, judging, imaging and remembering. This text integrates contributions from several fields of neuroscience, bringing together the latest efforts to solve the puzzle of attention: how it works, how it is modulated, what its benefits are and how it is expressed in the brain.

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