Theories of Visual Attention - linking cognition, neuropsychology, and neurophysiology

The Neural Theory of Visual Attention of Bundesen, Habekost, and Kyllingsbæk (2005) was proposed as a neural interpretation of Bundesen’s (1990) theory of visual attention (TVA). In NTVA, visual attention functions via two mechanisms: by dynamic remapping of receptive fields of cortical cells such that more cells are devoted to behaviorally important objects than to less important ones (filtering) and by multiplicative scaling of the level of activation in cells coding for particular features (pigeonholing). NTVA accounts for a wide range of known attentional effects in human performance and a wide range of effects observed in firing rates of single cells in the primate visual system and thus provides a mathematical framework to unify the 2 fields of research.

In this Research Topic of Frontiers in Psychology, leading theories of visual attention at both the cognitive, neuropsychological, and neurophysiological levels are presented and their relations to NTVA are discussed. In addition, the Research Topic encompasses application of the framework of NTVA to various patient populations, neuroimaging as well as genetic and psychopharmacological studies.

We welcome presentations of leading theories and models of visual attention, which can be discussed in relation to NVTA. We also encourage original empirical work, modeling work, or combined empirical and modeling work within NTVA or adjacent frameworks.

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.