Editing Attention (section)

===Overt and covert orienting===
Attention may be differentiated into "overt" versus "covert" orienting.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Wright RD, Ward LM |year= 2008 |title= Orienting of Attention |publisher= [[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref>

''Overt orienting'' is the act of selectively attending to an item or location over others by moving the eyes to point in that direction.<ref name="Posner, M. I. 1980">{{cite journal | vauthors = Posner MI | title = Orienting of attention | journal = The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology | volume = 32 | issue = 1 | pages = 3–25 | date = February 1980 | pmid = 7367577 | doi = 10.1080/00335558008248231 | s2cid = 2842391 | url = http://psych.unl.edu/mdodd/Psy498/Posner.pdf }}</ref> Overt orienting can be directly observed in the form of eye movements. Although overt eye movements are quite common, there is a distinction that can be made between two types of eye movements; reflexive and controlled. Reflexive movements are commanded by the [[superior colliculus]] of the [[midbrain]]. These movements are fast and are activated by the sudden appearance of stimuli. In contrast, controlled eye movements are commanded by areas in the [[frontal lobe]]. These movements are slow and voluntary.

''Covert orienting'' is the act of mentally shifting one's focus without moving one's eyes.<ref name="Eriksen"/><ref name="Posner, M. I. 1980"/><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Eriksen CW, Colegate RL |title=Selective attention and serial processing in briefly presented visual displays|journal=Perception & Psychophysics|volume=10|issue=5|pages=321–326|year=1971 |doi=10.3758/BF03207451 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Simply, it is changes in attention that are not attributable to overt eye movements. Covert orienting has the potential to affect the output of perceptual processes by governing attention to particular items or locations (for example, the activity of a V4 neuron whose receptive field lies on an attended stimuli will be enhanced by covert attention)<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite journal | vauthors = Gregoriou GG, Gotts SJ, Zhou H, Desimone R | title = High-frequency, long-range coupling between prefrontal and visual cortex during attention | journal = Science | volume = 324 | issue = 5931 | pages = 1207–10 | date = May 2009 | pmid = 19478185 | pmc = 2849291 | doi = 10.1126/science.1171402 | bibcode = 2009Sci...324.1207G }}</ref> but does not influence the information that is processed by the senses. Researchers often use "filtering" tasks to study the role of covert attention of selecting information. These tasks often require participants to observe a number of stimuli, but attend to only one.<br /> The current view is that visual covert attention is a mechanism for quickly scanning the field of view for interesting locations. This shift in covert attention is linked to eye movement circuitry that sets up a slower [[saccade]] to that location.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Carrasco M, McElree B | title = Covert attention accelerates the rate of visual information processing | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 98 | issue = 9 | pages = 5363–7 | date = April 2001 | pmid = 11309485 | pmc = 33215 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.081074098 | bibcode = 2001PNAS...98.5363C | doi-access = free }}</ref>

There are studies that suggest the mechanisms of overt and covert orienting may not be controlled separately and independently as previously believed. Central mechanisms that may control covert orienting, such as the [[parietal lobe]], also receive input from subcortical centres involved in overt orienting.<ref name="Posner, M. I. 1980"/> In support of this, general theories of attention actively assume bottom-up (reflexive) processes and top-down (voluntary) processes converge on a common neural architecture, in that they control both covert and overt attentional systems.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Hunt AR, Kingstone A | title = Covert and overt voluntary attention: linked or independent? | journal = Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research | volume = 18 | issue = 1 | pages = 102–5 | date = December 2003 | pmid = 14659502 | doi = 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2003.08.006 }}</ref>  For example, if individuals attend to the right hand corner field of view, movement of the eyes in that direction may have to be actively suppressed.

Covert attention has been argued to reflect the existence of processes "programming explicit ocular movement".<ref name="Rizzolatti Riggio Dascola Umiltá 1987 pp. 31–40">{{cite journal |last1=Rizzolatti |first1=Giacomo |last2=Riggio |first2=Lucia |last3=Dascola |first3=Isabella |last4=Umiltá |first4=Carlo |date=1987 |title=Reorienting attention across the horizontal and vertical meridians: Evidence in favor of a premotor theory of attention |journal=Neuropsychologia |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=31–40 |doi=10.1016/0028-3932(87)90041-8|pmid=3574648 |s2cid=16353514 }}</ref> However, this has been questioned on the grounds that [[N200 (neuroscience)|N2]], "a neural measure of covert attentional allocation—does not always precede eye movements".<ref name="Talcott Kiat Luck Gaspelin 2023 p.">{{cite journal |last1=Talcott |first1=Travis N. |last2=Kiat |first2=John E. |last3=Luck |first3=Steven J. |last4=Gaspelin |first4=Nicholas |date=2023-08-23 |title=Is covert attention necessary for programming accurate saccades? Evidence from saccade-locked event-related potentials |journal=Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics |volume=87 |issue=1 |pages=172–190 |doi=10.3758/s13414-023-02775-5 |pmid=37612581 |s2cid=261098480 |issn=1943-3921}}</ref> However, the researchers acknowledge, "it may be impossible to definitively rule out the possibility that some kind of shift of covert attention precedes every shift of overt attention".<ref name="Talcott Kiat Luck Gaspelin 2023 p.">{{cite journal |last1=Talcott |first1=Travis N. |last2=Kiat |first2=John E. |last3=Luck |first3=Steven J. |last4=Gaspelin |first4=Nicholas |date=2023-08-23 |title=Is covert attention necessary for programming accurate saccades? Evidence from saccade-locked event-related potentials |journal=Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics |volume=87 |issue=1 |pages=172–190 |doi=10.3758/s13414-023-02775-5 |pmid=37612581 |s2cid=261098480 |issn=1943-3921}}</ref>