The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Attention : A Special Issue of the Journal "Cognitive Neuropsychology"

The theme of this Special Issue is one that is ill-served by the existing neuropsychological literature.

A publication that collates reviews of the developmental, physiological, clinical and cognitive aspects of this topic is therefore timely and would prove valuable to clinicians, researchers and students alike.

The underlying problem addressed by the invited contributors is how attention is manifest in the intact brain, and how disorders of attention present themselves in the damaged brain.

The topics to be covered will range from the physiology of attention (as revealed by single unit recording studies of extra-striate cortex of monkeys and PET scans in humans and low frequency EEG recordings) to disorders of attention after brain damage (e.g. stroke) and chronic pathological disorders of the brain (e.g. dyslexia and mental retardation). The range of contributions to the Special Issue demonstrates that the kinds of attentional processing required are determined by the task in hand.

Correspondingly the volume discusses attention in the parietal, temporal and frontal lobes of the human and macaque brain, investigated by clinical, electrophysiological and behavioural methods.

Attentional processes are also shown to be distributed in the brain and the effects of diminished attentional capacities which do not result from focal brain lesions are discussed in the context of mental retardation and dyslexia.