MIT researchers: The mind's eye scans like a spotlight
In the study, monkeys were given the task of searching for one particular tilted, colored bar among a field of bars on a computer screen. By monitoring the activity of neurons in three of the animals’ brain regions, researchers found that the monkeys spontaneously shifted their attention in a sequence, like a moving spotlight that jumped from location to location.
What’s more, the study showed that brain waves act as a kind of built-in clock that provides a framework for shifting attention from one location to the next. The work could have implications for understanding or treating attention deficit disorder or even potentially speeding up the rate of cognition in the brain.
Oh, also awesome:
“Attention regulates the flood of sensory information pouring into the brain into a manageable stream. In particular, a lot of different areas of the brain are involved in vision. If they all competed at once, it would be chaos,” Miller said. “Brain waves may provide the clock that tells the brain when to shift its attention from one stimulus to another. Oscillating brain waves may provide a way for several regions across the brain to be on the same page at the same time - very similar to the way computers use an internal clock to synchronize the many different components inside.”
