Principles of Visual Attention

Claus Bundesen is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Director of the Center for Visual Cognition at the University of Copenhagen, and Director of the Danish Research School of Psychology. He is the President of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Attention and Performance. He has been Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology and a member of the editorial board of Visual Cognition. Currently he is a member of the editorial boards of Psychological Review and Psychological Research. His achievements include measurement of effects of visual size in pattern recognition and apparent movement and development of mathematical models of selective attention in vision. Thomas Habekost received his Ph.D. in 2005 (University of Copenhagen) for a thesis on attention disturbances after right hemisphere stroke, in which he developed and applied a new testing method based on TVA theory. He has since extended the TVA based testing method to study other patient groups as well as the normal aging process. He has also contributed to the development of the NTVA theory, especially its applications to the single-cell literature on attention.

1. Introduction ; PART I - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VISUAL ATTENTION ; 2. Psychological research on visual attention ; 3. A psychological theory of visual attention (TVA) ; 4. Explaining divided attention by TVA ; 5. Explaining focused attention by TVA ; PART II - THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF VISUAL ATTENTION ; 6. Effects of visual attention in single neurons ; 7. A neural theory of visual attention (NTVA) ; 8. Explaining attentional effects in single neurons by NTVA ; PART III - THE ANATOMY OF VISUAL ATTENTION ; 9. Brain imaging of visual attention ; 10. Disturbances of visual attention ; 11. TVA-based assessment ; CONCLUSION ; 12. A unified theory of visual attention