Physics (Internal)

NEURONAL DYNAMICS OF ATTENTIONAL CONTROL: SWITCHING AND DECISION MAKING

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

Abstract: Attentional networks in the brain dynamically control cognitive and perceptual processes to
focus on specific behavioral and/or mental events in order to make a decision. As we know from
everyday life, the resources of attentional processing are finite. Nevertheless, we often face
situations in which it is necessary to simultaneously process several modalities, for example, to
quickly switch attention from one player to another in a soccer field. In this talk I will discuss a
unified model of attentional control dynamics. This model is based on sequential information
processing stability conditions that are realized through nonsymmetric inhibition in attentional
networks. In particular, we analyze the dynamics of attentional switching and focus in the case
of parallel processing of three interacting mental modalities. Using global excitatory-inhibitory
networks as a model, we investigate how the bifurcations between different attentional top-down
control strategies depend on the environment and/or the mental stimuli. We also discuss the
relationship between attention and decision making: in this context, a decision making process is
a controllable bifurcation of a specific attention strategy. Finally, we suggest the dynamical
evaluation of attentional resources in neural sequence processing.