The Attentive Brain

A central thesis of this book on the cognitive neuroscience of attention is that attention is not a single entity, but a finite set of brain processes that interact mutually and with other brain processes in the performance of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills. After an introductory Part I, the book consists of three parts. Part II describes the major neuroscience methods and the computational modeling of attention. Part III looks at three major components of attention from the cognitive neuroscience perspective: selection, vigilance, and control. Finally, part IV discusses the application of findings from the previous sections to the analysis of normal and abnormal development and to pathologies of attention such as schizophrenia and attention deficit disorders.