Attempts to apply a chronometric analysis to the tendency of the visual modality to dominate conscious judgments about the presence and location of objects. (Author/RK)

Studies of selective attention suggest a system which operates across modalities and on many forms of internal representation. Complex analysis, even semantic analysis, of sensory input may occur automatically, but attention controls the locus of action. When computations carried out by the brain are effortful, in the sense that elements compete…

This paper reviews the aspects of cognitive science that relate best to using electrical and magnetic recording to understand the function of brain systems. It outlines a framework for relating cognitive activities of daily life (typing, reading) to underlying neural systems. The framework uses five levels of analysis: task, elementary operations,…

Recently, knowledge of the mechanisms of visual-spatial attention has improved due to studies employing single cell recording with alert monkeys and studies using performance analysis of neurological patients. These studies suggest that a complex neural network including parts of the posterior parietal lobe and midbrain are involved in covert…

While neuropsychology relates the neural structures damaged in traumatic brain injury with their cognitive functions in daily life, this report reviews evidence that elementary operations of cognition as defined by cognitive studies are the level at which the brain localizes its computations. Orienting of visual attention is used as a model task.…

A general framework is outlined for describing the relationship of cognition to brain systems. The model provides for empirical investigations at many levels--computational, chronometric, spatial imaging, and cellular--and argues for the logical interrelationship of these areas of investigation. It is applied to selective visual-spatial attention…