The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been reliably implicated in visuospatial attention, such that the dorsal regions (dPPC) are associated with voluntary ‘top-down’ attention, whereas the ventral regions (vPPC) are associated with automatic ‘bottom-up’ attentional processes. The Attention-to-Memory model (AtoM: Ciaramelli, Grady, & Moscovitch, 2008) has suggested that it also plays a similar role in memory retrieval, suggesting that the PPC mediates a domain-general attentional process. Furthermore, domain-generality of attentional processes may account for differences in perception and memory function accompanying old age. This study examined domain-generality by determining the shared variance in performance of tasks thought to recruit top-down and bottom-up attentional processes mediated across both domains. Results clearly suggested generality across domains in top-down processing; and in bottom-up processing, depending on its operationalization. Ageing was characterized by an absence of shared variance across domains and slower reaction times during bottom-up attentional reorienting only in perception.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/42683 |
| Date | 21 November 2013 |
| Creators | Bellana, Buddhika |
| Contributors | Moscovitch, Morris, Grady, Cheryl L. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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