Attentional inhibition in patients with focal frontal lobe lesions.
Patients with unilateral, frontal lobe damage and matched controls performed an identity negative priming task as a measure of inhibition in selective attention. Control participants demonstrated a normal negative priming effect, as evidenced by slower reaction times when a previously to-be-ignored item became the target on a subsequent trial (distractor suppression). On the other hand, patients with left medial frontal lobe damage showed positive priming in the distractor suppression condition suggesting facilitation of distractor information. Patients with right frontal lobe damage showed an unreliable pattern of negative priming, some demonstrating an absence of negative priming and others demonstrating enhanced negative priming in the distractor suppression condition. Neither patient group nor controls demonstrated slower responses on a target-to-distractor condition included to evaluate a noninhibitory (i.e., episodic retrieval) account of negative priming. Taken together, our results suggest that (a) the negative priming effect represents active inhibition of a distractor representation, rather than a noninhibitory mismatch between retrieval episodes, and (b) that the frontal lobes, especially the left frontal lobes, contribute to this active inhibition.
McDonald
Carrie R
CR
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, USA. camcdonald@ucsd.edu
Bauer
Russell M
RM
Filoteo
J Vincent
JV
Grande
Laura
L
Roper
Steven N
SN
Gilmore
Robin
R
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning / Q000502:physiology; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology