Attention and awareness are tightly coupled phenomena that describe how particular information is selected for processing and subsequently experienced. Many contemporary theories of both processes posit that there are specific neurobiological networks that produce each of these cognitive processes. These networks, however, do not exist in a vacuum and observable behavior is not the result of the activity of a single network. In order to fully understand how attention and awareness are instantiated in the brain, we must assess how connections between all networks of the brain differ for these phenomena. Network science and graph theory have taken hold in cognitive neuroscience as an instrument for describing both the global physical and functional connections in the brain. A primary goal of this thesis is to incorporate an understanding of the global changes in connectivity and network topology with current models of attention and awareness. Patterns of global functional integration were found to result from awareness of a simple target percept. These results support global neurobiological theories of awareness, rather than network-level or focal theories. However, the capture of attention by salient, irrelevant information produced an alternate global pattern of changes, favoring relatively more functional segregation. The results of these two experiments present potential mechanisms by which the brain processes task-relevant and task-irrelevant information, respectively. These mechanisms were then tested within the context of a single task, pitting processing of task-relevant information against potential distracting stimuli. Ultimately, by utilizing graph theory these experiments have identified global functional connectivity as a potential contributing brain mechanism of processing information.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03232016-132209 |
| Date | 06 April 2016 |
| Creators | Godwin, Franklin Douglass |
| Contributors | René Marois, David Zald, Sean Polyn, Baxter Rogers |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03232016-132209/ |
| Rights | restrictsix, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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