Control of Attention Shifts between Vision and Audition in Human Cortex

TLDR

Selective attention enhances perceptual efficiency by modulating cortical activity, yet the neural mechanisms underlying cross‑modal attentional control remain poorly understood. We investigated human brain activity during voluntary shifts of attention between visual and auditory modalities. Shifts from vision to audition increased auditory‑cortex activity while decreasing visual‑cortex activity, and vice versa, with transient activations in posterior parietal and superior prefrontal cortices time‑locked to shift initiation, demonstrating that these regions mediate cross‑modal attentional control.

Abstract

Selective attention contributes to perceptual efficiency by modulating cortical activity according to task demands. Visual attention is controlled by activity in posterior parietal and superior frontal cortices, but little is known about the neural basis of attentional control within and between other sensory modalities. We examined human brain activity during attention shifts between vision and audition. Attention shifts from vision to audition caused increased activity in auditory cortex and decreased activity in visual cortex and vice versa, reflecting the effects of attention on sensory representations. Posterior parietal and superior prefrontal cortices exhibited transient increases in activity that were time locked to the initiation of voluntary attention shifts between vision and audition. These findings reveal that the attentional control functions of posterior parietal and superior prefrontal cortices are not limited to the visual domain but also include the control of crossmodal shifts of attention.