Health News For South West
Monday, December 03, 2007
The University of Western Ontario
A Real Attention Grabber: Scientist finds way to measure covert attention
London, ON – The person you’re speaking with
may be looking at you, but are they really paying
attention? Or has the person covertly shifted their
attention, without moving their eyes? Dr. Brian
Corneil, of the Centre for Brain and Mind at The
University of Western Ontario has found a way of
actually measuring covert attention. His
research “Neuromuscular consequences of
reflexive covert orienting” is posted on the
Advance Online Publication of Nature
Neuroscience
.
“Our results demonstrate for the first time that
covert attention can be measured in real-time via
recordings of muscle activity in the neck,” says
Corneil, an assistant professor of physiology &
pharmacology and psychology. “This finding may
fundamentally change how attention is measured,
grounding it in an objective and straightforward
technique.”
.
Until now, measuring attention was based on
indirect measures of changes in reaction time, or
stimulus detection. In furthering our
understanding of how the brain works, Corneil has
discovered that neck muscles are recruited during
covert orienting, even in the absence of eye
movements. This finding could help in assessing
the effectiveness of therapies for stroke or other
neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s
disease.
.
The study was conducted in collaboration with
researchers at Queen’s University and the
University of Toronto, with funding from the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and
the Human Frontier Science Program. Corneil is a
CIHR New Investigator, and a member of the CIHR
Group in Action and Perception.
.
Media contact: Kathy Wallis, Media Relations
Officer,
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, The
University of Western Ontario
519-661-2111 ext. 81136,
Kathy.wallis@schulich.uwo.ca
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