Neural correlates of primary and reflective consciousness of spatial orienting

Unconscious strategies? Commentary on Risko and Stolz (2010): “The proportion valid effect in covert orienting: Strategic control or implicit learning?”

“…Now, the results presented by Risko and Stolz (this issue) highlight the opposite dissociation. These data confirm previous evidence from Bartolomeo et al (Bartolomeo, Decaix, & Siéroff, 2007;Bartolomeo, Zieren, Vohn, Dubois, & Sturm, 2008;Decaix, Siéroff, & Bartolomeo, 2002), in showing that phenomena traditionally ascribed to voluntary orienting of attention need not be conscious. Indeed, a particular implementation of the automatic (unconscious)/voluntary (conscious) dichotomy has occurred in the domain of spatial orienting of attention.…”

“…We are not sure, however, that a strategic component in the proportion valid effect can be completely excluded by the available evidence. Consistent with the idea of an explicit component, an fMRI version (Bartolomeo et al, 2008) of the Bartolomeo et al's (2007) experiments demonstrated that those participants who were able to verbalize the cue-target relationship, for whom a strategic component might have contributed to performance, had stronger activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, in agreement with the proposed role of this structure in purposeful behavior. These considerations, however, do not undermine the validity of Risko and Stolz's results, which constitute important new evidence on the role of implicit processes in endogenous orienting, and which will hopefully stimulate further research on the exciting issue of the relationships between attention and awareness.…”

The proportion valid effect in covert orienting: Strategic control or implicit learning?

“…In a recent series of experiments, Bartolomeo, Decaix, & Sieroff (2007; see also Bartolomeo, Zieren, Vohn, Dubois, & Sturm, 2008) set out to determine if the proportion valid effect was dependent on the participant being aware of the relation between the cue and target. In three experiments Bartolomeo et al (2007) manipulated proportion valid in the covert orienting paradigm.…”

Can the exploration of left space be induced implicitly in unilateral neglect?

“…They observed that participants from the non-informed group benefited as much from the cues to orient quickly towards the targets as the participants in the informed group-regardless of their ability to verbally report the cue-target relation. These results suggested that the subjects' sensitivity to the probabilistic association between the cue and the target in the Posner paradigm might be sustained by more implicit mechanisms that can function in the absence of awareness of the cue-target relation (see also Bartolomeo et al 2008;Chica & Bartolomeo, 2010;LopezRamon et al, 2011). Lambert et al (1999) distinguished this component of visual orienting as the implicit peripheral cueing effect.…”

“…Left visual neglect is a common disorder resulting from unilateral hemispheric damage, often as a consequence of resulting dysfunction in fronto-parietal networks in the right hemisphere (Bartolomeo, Thiebaut de Schotten, & Doricchi, 2007), which include networks that are important for the spatial orienting of attention (Bartolomeo, Zieren, Vohn, Dubois, & Sturm, 2008;Corbetta & Shulman, 2002). Neglect patients tend to explore mainly ipsilesional locations, and are unable to orient, report, or respond to events contralateral to the side of the brain lesion (Heilman, Watson, & Valenstein, 2011).…”