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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 19, 2005, 25(42):9602-9612; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0879-05.2005

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Visual Selection and Posterior Parietal Cortex: Effects of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on Partial Report Analyzed by Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention

June Hung,^1,2,3 Jon Driver,¹ and Vincent Walsh¹

¹Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom, ²Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UD, United Kingdom, and ³Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei 10507, Taiwan

Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) may contribute to visual selection by exerting top-down influences on visual processing. To seek direct evidence for this, we used 10 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over right or left PPC in nine healthy volunteers during a partial (selective) report task that allows quantitative assessment of top-down control and other parameters. Participants reported digits in a relevant color ("targets") but not those in an irrelevant color ("nontargets") from a brief masked display, in which a target could appear alone or together with an accompanying item (nontarget or target) in the same or opposite hemifield. Generally, a given target is identified better when presented with a nontarget than with another target, indicating top-down selection of task-relevant targets; this applied here with no rTMS or left PPC rTMS. However, rTMS over the right PPC changed the performance pattern. A left target no longer impeded report of a right target more strongly than did a left nontarget, whereas the greater impact of a right target than a right nontarget in disrupting report of a left target was increased. Formal analysis in terms of Bundesen's (1990) theory of visual attention indicated that right PPC rTMS diminished top-down control for the left hemifield while enhancing this for the right hemifield, particularly for bilateral two-item displays. These findings indicate a role for right PPC in top-down spatial selection, which applies even when the target is defined by a nonspatial property (here color).

Key words: parietal; transcranial magnetic stimulation; visual selectivity; extinction; spatial; attention

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Received March 4, 2005; revised August 15, 2005; accepted September 6, 2005.

This article has been cited by other articles:

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