Anterior Prefrontal Contributions to Implicit Attention Control
Experimental Psychology Lab, Institute of Psychology II, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Postbox 4120, D-39016 Magdeburg, Germany
Brain Sci. 2012, 2(2), 254-266; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci2020254
Received: 13 April 2012 / Revised: 4 June 2012 / Accepted: 5 June 2012 / Published: 15 June 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Brain Knows More than It Admits: The Control of Cognition and Emotion by Non-Conscious Processes)
Prefrontal cortex function has traditionally been associated with explicit executive function. Recently, however, evidence has been presented that lateral prefrontal cortex is also involved in high-level cognitive processes such as task set selection or inhibition in the absence of awareness. Here, we discuss evidence that not only lateral prefrontal cortex, but also rostral prefrontal cortex is involved in such kinds of implicit control processes. Specifically, rostral prefrontal cortex activation changes have been observed when implicitly learned spatial contingencies in a search display become invalid, requiring a change of attentional settings for optimal guidance of visual search.
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Keywords:
prefrontal; frontopolar; implicit; learning; unconscious
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MDPI and ACS Style
Pollmann, S. Anterior Prefrontal Contributions to Implicit Attention Control. Brain Sci. 2012, 2, 254-266.
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