Taak 6 Getting the brain’s attention
What is the attentional network task?
Fan et al. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks
Posner and Petersen (1990) proposed that the sources of attention form a specific system
of anatomical areas, which can be further broken down into three networks. These
networks carry out the functions of alerting, orienting and executive control.
Alerting system (Alerting is defined as achieving and maintaining an alert state)
Frontal and parietal regions of the right hemisphere with norepineprhine (NE) as
modulator.
Orienting system (Orienting is the selection of information from sensory input)
Areas of the frontal and parietal lobes. The superior parietal lobe is associated with
orienting following the presentation of a cue. When a target occurs at an uncued location,
and attention has to be disengaged and moved to a new location, there is activity in the
temporal- parietal junction. Lesions of the temporal- parietal junction most likely result in
neglect. Acetylcholine is the modulator of the orienting network.
Executive control system (Executive control is defined as resolving conflict among
responses)
Activates the midline frontal areas (anterior cingulate) and the lateral prefrontal cortex.
Also activated by flanker tasks and is modulated by dopamine.
The goal of the present researh is to builod upon this work to develop a behavioral task
which (1) clearly involves all three attentional networks, (2) could be used to obtain a
measure of the efficiency of each of the networks, and (3) is simple enough to obtain data
from children, patients and animals.
The Attentional Network Task (ANT)
illustrated in this figure, is a
combination of the cued reaction time
and the flanker task. The ANT requires
participants to determine whether a
central arrow points left or right. The
arrow appears above or below fixation
and may or may not be accompanied
by flankers. Efficiency of the three
attentional networks is assessed by
measuring how response imes are
influenced by alerting cues, spatial
cues and flankers.
Figure 1 Experimental procedure.
a. The four cue conditions
b. The six stimuli used in the
present experiment.
c. An example of the procedure.
1
What is the attentional network task?
Fan et al. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks
Posner and Petersen (1990) proposed that the sources of attention form a specific system
of anatomical areas, which can be further broken down into three networks. These
networks carry out the functions of alerting, orienting and executive control.
Alerting system (Alerting is defined as achieving and maintaining an alert state)
Frontal and parietal regions of the right hemisphere with norepineprhine (NE) as
modulator.
Orienting system (Orienting is the selection of information from sensory input)
Areas of the frontal and parietal lobes. The superior parietal lobe is associated with
orienting following the presentation of a cue. When a target occurs at an uncued location,
and attention has to be disengaged and moved to a new location, there is activity in the
temporal- parietal junction. Lesions of the temporal- parietal junction most likely result in
neglect. Acetylcholine is the modulator of the orienting network.
Executive control system (Executive control is defined as resolving conflict among
responses)
Activates the midline frontal areas (anterior cingulate) and the lateral prefrontal cortex.
Also activated by flanker tasks and is modulated by dopamine.
The goal of the present researh is to builod upon this work to develop a behavioral task
which (1) clearly involves all three attentional networks, (2) could be used to obtain a
measure of the efficiency of each of the networks, and (3) is simple enough to obtain data
from children, patients and animals.
The Attentional Network Task (ANT)
illustrated in this figure, is a
combination of the cued reaction time
and the flanker task. The ANT requires
participants to determine whether a
central arrow points left or right. The
arrow appears above or below fixation
and may or may not be accompanied
by flankers. Efficiency of the three
attentional networks is assessed by
measuring how response imes are
influenced by alerting cues, spatial
cues and flankers.
Figure 1 Experimental procedure.
a. The four cue conditions
b. The six stimuli used in the
present experiment.
c. An example of the procedure.
1
