Attention has been a central topic in cognitive psychology since the end of the 1950s. As Kahneman observes in 1973, "the main function of the term "attention" in post-behavioristic psychology is to provide a label for some of the internal mechanisms that determine the significance of stimuli and thereby make it impossible to predict behavior by stimulus considerations alone”. The existence of a selective attention mechanism to filter out insignificant and irrelevant stimuli seems uncontentious. Since the early 2000s, attention has emerged as an important topic of research In economics with Sims’ in 2003, idea of “rational inattention” which recognizes the need to allocate scarce attentional resources in our increasingly stimuli rich world given the unprecedented range of news and information that has been coming our way. In parallel, research in modeling individual decision maker’s attentional process has accelerated over the past decade.
Over the past two decades, there has been considerable research in neuroscience on the nature of attention. This has given rise to the discovery of two distinct attention networks working in tandem: a bottom-up salience attention network (SAN) which is largely unconscious and a conscious top-down executive attention network (EAN). SAN serves as a brain-level spam filter in screening out irrelevant events and noise to segregate the more relevant among intra- and extra-personal stimuli to facilitate top-down engagement of EAN. Anatomically, bottom-up SAN consists of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and bilateral insulae and includes locus-coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) pathway that functions as a brain-wide announcement system to alert higher brain areas such as the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex that a sufficiently salient event has occurred and may require attention. The top-down EAN, comprising PFC, parietal cortex, FEF (frontal eye field) and IPS (intraparietal sulcus), engages in stimuli selection, orientation of the visual and audio systems and activating executive action which directs the allocation of inherently costly attention. Emerging at the confluence of economics, psychology and neuroscience, decision neuroscience provides a natural platform for a deeper understanding of the role of attention in decision making going beyond revealed choice in behavioral economics to encompass observations at the physiological, neural and molecular levels.
With the advent of newer tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, positron emission tomography, electroencephalogram, magnetoencephalogram, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and eye tracking, in conjunction with modalities involving the human genome, decision neuroscience of attention can open fresh avenues towards a consilience of psychology, economics, and neurobiology. The repertoire of resources is not complete without highlighting the important role pharmacology plays to manipulate neurotransmitter levels relating to our attention networks.
We will welcome multidisciplinary contributions to this Research Topic on decision neuroscience of attention with a primary focus on human decision making. Contributions may involve different modalities and include normal as well as clinical subjects including those with neurological and major mental illnesses.
Attention has been a central topic in cognitive psychology since the end of the 1950s. As Kahneman observes in 1973, "the main function of the term "attention" in post-behavioristic psychology is to provide a label for some of the internal mechanisms that determine the significance of stimuli and thereby make it impossible to predict behavior by stimulus considerations alone”. The existence of a selective attention mechanism to filter out insignificant and irrelevant stimuli seems uncontentious. Since the early 2000s, attention has emerged as an important topic of research In economics with Sims’ in 2003, idea of “rational inattention” which recognizes the need to allocate scarce attentional resources in our increasingly stimuli rich world given the unprecedented range of news and information that has been coming our way. In parallel, research in modeling individual decision maker’s attentional process has accelerated over the past decade.
Over the past two decades, there has been considerable research in neuroscience on the nature of attention. This has given rise to the discovery of two distinct attention networks working in tandem: a bottom-up salience attention network (SAN) which is largely unconscious and a conscious top-down executive attention network (EAN). SAN serves as a brain-level spam filter in screening out irrelevant events and noise to segregate the more relevant among intra- and extra-personal stimuli to facilitate top-down engagement of EAN. Anatomically, bottom-up SAN consists of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and bilateral insulae and includes locus-coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) pathway that functions as a brain-wide announcement system to alert higher brain areas such as the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex that a sufficiently salient event has occurred and may require attention. The top-down EAN, comprising PFC, parietal cortex, FEF (frontal eye field) and IPS (intraparietal sulcus), engages in stimuli selection, orientation of the visual and audio systems and activating executive action which directs the allocation of inherently costly attention. Emerging at the confluence of economics, psychology and neuroscience, decision neuroscience provides a natural platform for a deeper understanding of the role of attention in decision making going beyond revealed choice in behavioral economics to encompass observations at the physiological, neural and molecular levels.
With the advent of newer tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, positron emission tomography, electroencephalogram, magnetoencephalogram, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and eye tracking, in conjunction with modalities involving the human genome, decision neuroscience of attention can open fresh avenues towards a consilience of psychology, economics, and neurobiology. The repertoire of resources is not complete without highlighting the important role pharmacology plays to manipulate neurotransmitter levels relating to our attention networks.
We will welcome multidisciplinary contributions to this Research Topic on decision neuroscience of attention with a primary focus on human decision making. Contributions may involve different modalities and include normal as well as clinical subjects including those with neurological and major mental illnesses.
