Author	Cohen, Ronald A. author
Title	The Neuropsychology of Attention [electronic resource] / by Ronald A. Cohen
Imprint	Boston, MA : Springer US : Imprint: Springer, 1993
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7463-1
Descript	XX, 545 p. 9 illus. online resource

As you read this, you are probably unaware of how your left foot feels in your shoe. Although your brain was receiving sensory input from this foot, you were not aware of your foot because you were reading and not attending to it. However, this discussion led you to move your attention to your left foot and to become aware of it. When I was a medical student, I saw a patient who was unaware of both the left side of his body and the left side of his environment. Unlike people in normal health, who when instructed can become aware of the left side of the body; this patient could not be made aware of his left arm or the left side of his environment. The patient's defect was so profound that despite being hungry he was unaware of food on the left side of his tray and did not recognize that his left arm belonged to him. This left-sided body and spatial unawareness could not be accounted for by a primary sensory defect. Although I knew that this man suffered from a large right-hemisphere stroke, I did not know the brain mechanisms that accounted for this profound example of unawareness. It was not until I had almost completed my neurology training in 1969 that I was able to return to this problem. At that time, most neuropsychological research was directed at understanding the language disorders associated with brain disease

I. Foundations of Attention -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Attention: A Component of Information Processing -- 3 Response Selection and the Executive Control of Attention -- 4 Contributions of Behavioral Psychology to the Study of Attention -- 5 The Orienting Response: An Index of Attention -- 6 Physiological Substrates of Attention -- 7 Neural Mechanisms of Attention -- 8 Models and Mechanisms of Attention: A Summary -- II. Neuropsychology of Attention -- 9 Neuroanatomical Disorders of Attention Affecting Sensory Selection -- 10 Attentional Control: Subcortical and Frontal Lobe Influences -- 11 Disturbances of Attention: Neurological Disease -- 12 Attentional Dysfunction Associated with Psychiatric Illness -- 13 Neuropsychological Assessment of Attention -- 14 Neuropsychological Models of Attentional Dysfunction -- III. Toward an Integrated Attentional Framework -- 15 Consciousness and Self-Directed Attention -- 16 Neural Constraints on Attention -- 17 Processing Speed and Attentional Resources -- 18 The Mutual Constraint of Memory and Attention -- 19 Spatial Determinants of Attention -- 20 Temporal Constraints on Attention -- 21 Computational Models for the Analysis of Attention -- 22 Toward an Integrated Neuropsychological Framework of Attention -- References