Spatial attention: normal processes and their breakdown

High-level vision involves processes, such as object recognition, selective attention, and visuomotor action, which lie at the interface of perception and cognition. This article focuses on selective attention, a set of processes that allows selection of some stimuli over others and performance of multiple tasks in a coordinated manner. This discussion is restricted to visuospatial attention-those attentional processes that select visual stimuli based on their spatial location. Spatial attention is perhaps the most widely studied variety of attention in normal populations and neurologic populations.