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The mind's eye, looking inward? In search of executive control in internal attention shifting
Author(s) -
Gehring William J.,
Bryck Richard L.,
Jonides John,
Albin Roger L.,
Badre David
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/1469-8986.00059
Subject(s) - facilitation , psychology , working memory , cognitive psychology , priming (agriculture) , task switching , cognition , attentional control , control (management) , audiology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , medicine , botany , germination , biology , management , economics
In studies of mental counting, participants are faster to increment a count that was just incremented (no‐switch trial) than to increment a different count (switch trial). Investigators have attributed the effect to a shift in the internal focus of attention on switch trials. Here we report evidence for other bottom‐up and top‐down contributions. Two stimuli were mapped to each of two counts. The no‐switch facilitation was greater when stimuli repeated than when they were different. Event‐related potential (ERP) activity associated with repetitions was anterior to that associated with switching. Runs of no‐switch trials elicited faster responses and frontal ERP activity. Runs of switches and large counts both elicited slow responses and reduced P300 amplitudes. Bottom‐up processes may include priming on no‐switch trials and conflict on switch trials. Top‐down processes may control conflict, subvocal rehearsal, and the contents of working memory.