The attention span of a fly

Abstract

Evidence for selective attention in animals depends in part on the observation that brain responses are associated with a salient stimulus and suppressed for competing stimuli. However, salience is dynamic, and a previously unattended stimulus may in turn become salient after a period of time. Thus, a second feature of selective attention is that it is characterized by a measurable tempo of alternating responsiveness among competing percepts. Previous analyses of attention-like responses to visual novelty in the Drosophila brain are extended here to address alternating attention between ongoing, competing visual stimuli. A simple method for identifying and quantifying such ongoing attention-like states is outlined, and analysis of data from wild-type and dunce animals revealed a distinct temporal structure of alternations (an attention span) in these strains. In addition to providing insight into attention-like states of Drosophila variants, this method can also be applied to other insects to infer alternation dynamics in a variety of brains. ©2007 Landes Bioscience.