Neural Mechanisms of Object-Based Attention

Abstract

House or Face? The neural mechanisms of spatial attention are well known, unlike nonspatial attention. Baldauf and Desimone (p. 424 , published online 10 April) combined several technologies to identify a fronto-temporal network in humans that mediates nonspatial object-based attention. There is a clear top-down directionality of these oscillatory interactions, establishing the inferior-frontal cortex as a key source of nonspatial attentional inputs to the inferior-temporal cortex. Surprisingly, the mechanisms for nonspatial attention are strikingly parallel to the mechanisms of spatial attention.