Neural correlates of endogenous and exogenous attention in touch: evidence for independent and interdependent mechanisms
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1
City University London, Psychology, United Kingdom
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2
Middlesex University, Psychology, United Kingdom
To contrast and detangle the underlying neural mechanisms during exogenous and endogenous orientation of attention to the body participants performed an exogenous, an endogenous and an endogenous counter-predictive attention task. Unilateral tactile cues were followed by a tactile target at the same or opposite hand. Response times were facilitated for expected targets both when the cue predicted targets at the same (endogenous predictive task) and opposite hand (endogenous counter-predictive task). In an exogenous task, where the cue was non-informative, inhibition of return was observed. Cue-target interval ERP analyses showed lateralized cues induced an enhanced anterior negativity (i.e. Anterior Directing Attention Negativity) and this exogenous effect was further enhanced by directing endogenous attention. In the exogenous and endogenous tasks this frontal lateralized negativity was sustained until target onset indicating preparatory activity within somatosensory areas (i.e. Lateral Somatosensory Negativity). In the endogenous counter-predictive task an enhanced posterior positivity (i.e. Late Directing Attention Positivity) was present, possibly suggesting that an external frame of reference was employed when shifting attention from one hand to the other. Post-target ERPs revealed early effects of exogenous attention followed by later neural correlates of endogenous attention. These effects were independent in both the endogenous predictive and exogenous tasks. However, voluntarily directing attention away from a cued body part influenced the early exogenous marker (N80). This suggests that the two mechanisms are interdependent, at least when the task requires more demanding shifts of attention. The research presented here demonstrates both a shared attentional network for endogenous and exogenous orienting as well as how endogenous shifts of attention influence and modulate exogenous tactile processing.
Keywords:
Attentional Orienting,
ERPs,
endogenous,
exogenous,
tactile attention
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Forster
B and
Jones
A
(2015). Neural correlates of endogenous and exogenous attention in touch: evidence for independent and interdependent mechanisms.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00142
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Bettina Forster, City University London, Psychology, London, United Kingdom, b.forster@city.ac.uk