It is proposed that attention to an object requires the simultaneous activity of three brain regions that are interconnected by a triangular circuit. The regions are the cortical site of attentional expression, the thalamic enhancement structure, and the prefrontal area of control. It is also proposed that awareness of an object requires the additional component of attention directed to a representation of the self. The expression of attention to a self-representation may involve activations of cortical sites corresponding to the body (...) landscape and/or verbal-based memories of autobiographical episodes. As in the case of attention to objects, attention to the self is presumed to involve a triangular circuit. The proposed triangular circuit of attention is shown to be generally consistent with current knowledge of brain structures and with data from a broad range of experiments concerned with the functions of neurons in these structures. (shrink)

It is proposed that attention to an object requires the simultaneous activity of three brain regions that are interconnected by a triangular circuit. The regions are the cortical site of attentional expression, the thalamic enhancement structure, and the prefrontal area of control. It is also proposed that awareness of an object requires the additional component of attention directed to a representation of the self. The expression of attention to a self-representation may involve activations of cortical sites corresponding to the body (...) landscape and/or verbal-based memories of autobiographical episodes. As in the case of attention to objects, attention to the self is presumed to involve a triangular circuit. The proposed triangular circuit of attention is shown to be generally consistent with current knowledge of brain structures and with data from a broad range of experiments concerned with the functions of neurons in these structures. (shrink)

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

A broad consensus has developed in recent years in the cognitive and neurosciences that the cognitive functions of the mind arise out of the activities of an extensive and diverse array of specialized processors operating as a parallel, distributed system. A theoretical perspective is presented which expands upon this "society" model to include globally integrative infuences upon this arrary of processors. This perspective serves as the basis for an explicit neural model of a "global workspace within a system of distributed (...) specialized processors". Anatomical and physiological evidence are reviewed which suggest that this parallel, modular architecture is superceded by a more diffuse, tangential intracortical network capable of integrating underlying modular activites into increasingly global cognitive representations. There follows an explication of the role of this "neural global workspace" in providing the essential basis for the central control of attention and the generation of unified, conscious percepts. Finally the role of thalamic and brainstem activation systems in these integrative processes is discussed. (shrink)