DUAL ATTENTION THEORY AND EPISODIC ENCODING

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Neuroimaging studies of episodic memory have demonstrated that engagement of dorsal parietal cortex during an experience is predictive of subsequent memory for the experience. Dual-attention theories of lateral parietal function posit that dorsal (superior parietal lobule and intraparietal sulcus) and ventral (inferior parietal lobule and temporo-parietal junction) parietal subregions support 'top-down', goal-directed attentional allocation and 'bottom-up'capture of attention by unexpected or salient stimuli, respectively. When viewed through the lens of attention, the dorsal parietal correlates of encoding can be interpreted to signify that dorsal attention mechanisms facilitate episodic encoding. By contrast, ventral parietal activation has been shown to correlate negatively with subsequent memory, perhaps due to the reflexive orienting to information that does not enable successful memory of study items.