title: Functional imaging reveals working memory and attention interact to produce the attentional blink.
abstract: If two centrally presented visual stimuli occur within approximately half a second of each other, the second target often fails to be reported correctly. This effect, called the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849-860, 1992], has been attributed to a resource "bottleneck," likely arising as a failure of attention during encoding into or retrieval from visual working memory (WM). Here we present participants with a hybrid WM-AB study while they undergo fMRI to provide insight into the neural underpinnings of this bottleneck. Consistent with a WM-based bottleneck account, fronto-parietal brain areas exhibited a WM load-dependent modulation of neural responses during the AB task. These results are consistent with the view that WM and attention share a capacity-limited resource and provide insight into the neural structures that underlie resource allocation in tasks requiring joint use of WM and attention.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK. stephen.johnston@brunel.ac.uk
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: David E J
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Linden
authors.forename: Kimron L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Shapiro
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D054518:Attentional Blink / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen