Abstract
The lateral prefrontal cortex has been implicated in a wide variety of functions that guide our behavior, and one such candidate function is selection. Selection mechanisms have been described in several domains spanning different stages of processing, from visual attention to response execution. Here, we consider two such mechanisms: selecting relevant information from the perceptual world (e.g., visual selective attention) and selecting relevant information from conceptual representations (e.g., selecting a specific attribute about an object from long-term memory). Although the mechanisms involved in visual selective attention have been well characterized, much less is known about the latter case of selection. In this article, we review the relevant literature from the attention domain as a springboard to understanding the mechanisms involved in conceptual selection.
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Funding was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH R01 MH 60414 and NIH R01 MH 67008) and the Searle Scholars Program to S.L.T.-S. and by an NIH Predoctoral Training Grant in Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience to I.P.K.
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Kan, I.P., Thompson-Schill, S.L. Selection from perceptual and conceptual representations. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 4, 466–482 (2004). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.4.4.466
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.4.4.466