title: How the brain blinks: towards a neurocognitive model of the attentional blink.
abstract: When people monitor a visual stream of rapidly presented stimuli for two targets (T1 and T2), they often miss T2 if it falls into a time window of about half a second after T1 onset-the attentional blink (AB). We provide an overview of recent neuroscientific studies devoted to analyze the neural processes underlying the AB and their temporal dynamics. The available evidence points to an attentional network involving temporal, right-parietal and frontal cortex, and suggests that the components of this neural network interact by means of synchronization and stimulus-induced desynchronization in the beta frequency range. We set up a neurocognitive scenario describing how the AB might emerge and why it depends on the presence of masks and the other event(s) the targets are embedded in. The scenario supports the idea that the AB arises from "biased competition", with the top-down bias being generated by parietal-frontal interactions and the competition taking place between stimulus codes in temporal cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Postbus 9555, 2300, Leiden, The Netherlands. hommel@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hommel
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kessler
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schmitz
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: Elkan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Akyürek
authors.forename: Kimron
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shapiro
authors.forename: Alfons
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schnitzler
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001611:Beta Rhythm; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003344:Cortical Synchronization; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D012033:Refractory Period, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*