What's the difference between noticing the rapid beat of a popular song on the radio and noticing the rapid rate of your heart when you see your crush? Between noticing the smell of fresh baked bread and noticing that you're out of breath? Both require attention. However, the direction of that attention differs: it is either turned outward, as in the case of noticing a stop sign or a tap on your shoulder, or turned inward, as in the case of feeling full or feeling love. 

Scientists have long held that attention – regardless to what – involves mostly the prefrontal cortex, that frontal region of the brain responsible for complex thought and unique to humans and advanced mammals. A recent study by Norman Farb from the University of Toronto published in Cerebral Cortex, however, suggests a radically new view: there are different ways of paying attention. While the prefrontal cortex may indeed be specialized for attending to external information, older and more buried parts of the brain including the “insula” and “posterior cingulate cortex” appear to be specialized in observing our internal landscape.

Most of us prioritize externally oriented attention. When we think of attention, we often think of focusing on something outside of ourselves. We "pay attention" to work, the TV, our partner, traffic, or anything that engages our senses. However, a whole other world exists that most of us are far less aware of: an internal world, with its varied landscape of emotions, feelings, and sensations. Yet it is often the internal world that determines whether we are having a good day or not, whether we are happy or unhappy. That’s why we can feel angry despite beautiful surroundings or feel perfectly happy despite being stuck in traffics. For this reason perhaps, this newly discovered pathway of attention may hold the key to greater well-being.

 Although this internal world of feelings and sensations dominates perception in babies, it becomes increasingly foreign and distant as we learn to prioritize the outside world.  Because we don’t pay as much attention to our internal world, it often takes us by surprise. We often only tune into our body when it rings an alarm bell –– that we’re extremely thirsty, hungry, exhausted or in pain. A flush of anger, a choked up feeling of sadness, or the warmth of love in our chest often appear to come out of the blue.

In a collaboration with professors Zindel Segal and Adam Anderson at the University of Toronto, the study compared exteroceptive (externally focused) attention to interoceptive (internally focused) attention in the brain. Participants were instructed to either focus on the sensation of their breath (interoceptive attention) or to focus their attention on words on a screen (exteroceptive attention).  Contrary to the conventional assumption that all attention relies upon the frontal lobe of the brain, the researchers found that this was true of only exteroceptive attention; interoceptive attention used evolutionarily older parts of the brain more associated with sensation and integration of physical experience.

Exteroceptive attention relies on the frontal lobes of the neocortex (literally, “new” cortex), the evolutionarily newest outer layer of our brains that most distinguishes humans from other species. Interoceptive attention, however, relies upon brain regions that link the cortex to the limbic system, an evolutionarily older brain system that we share in common with many other animals. These limbic connections may support more direct access to emotions and physical sensations while the neocortex is more responsible for a conceptual sense of self. By recruiting “limbic-bridge” areas like the insula and posterior cingulate, a person using interoceptive attention may bypass the pre-frontal neocortex, directly tapping into bodily awareness that is free from social judgment or conceptual self-evaluation.

6 Comments

1. 1. username69 03:50 PM 4/6/12

   this is a good article with important content. but, even though it references yoga and meditation, it nonetheless continues to espouse the perhaps unconscious denial of how far ahead much of eastern thought is on this matter relative to western thought (not to superimpose a fictitious dichotomy between methods of thought). the sentence, "this newly discovered pathway of attention may hold the key to greater well-being" is a perfect example, because, in fact, this is meditation 101 and has been understood and implemented by buddhists, hindus, et al for millennia.
   
   not only is the disparity between these understandings being ignored, but also being ignored is the fact that much of contemporary thought, especially regarding psychology, has been highly informed and enhanced by buddhism, and vice versa, and that this is an amazing thing. these two systems of thought can no longer be considered as separate entities to the degree which they previously were, and it would be entirely beneficial for people to acknowledge and utilize this dynamic in order to garner a much richer understanding of ourselves and the rest of reality..

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2. 2. mahaguru 07:00 PM 4/6/12

   I agree with username69
   
   See any numbers of links to inner awarness
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obYJRmgrqOU
   
   http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=20+minute+body+scan+meditation+&oq=Body+scan+medi&aq=4m&aqi=g2g-m3&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=youtube.1.4.0l2j0i5l3.3990.8414.0.16684.14.14.0.0.0.0.532.2163.8j0j4j0j1j1.14.0.

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3. 3. LabPsico 02:20 PM 4/7/12

   Sorry to say this but this work is almost like reinventing the wheel. Those who work in clinical psychology know that there is a difference between internal/external type of attention. In fact one can say that in order to have depression or states of anxiety one needs to do internal attention which is also known as rumination. The only interesting thing about this work is that it identifies the parts of the brain which are activated by internal and the external attentions. This actually provides further support to those who do neurofeedback in clinical interventions and tries to increase the frontal brain activity. This makes the person to become more external oriented and so spend less time ruminating, less depression and something which no drug can do. Thanks Farb for the work. Nice one.

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4. 4. dopelotus 05:15 AM 5/11/12

   Dalai Lama 1000; Western Psychology 5.
   _/\_<3

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5. 5. Mindful Physician 12:01 PM 7/7/12

   Mindfulness meditation has been shown to decrease stress and burnout while improving career satisfaction and overall happiness in physicians and other health care workers. Please join us for a 3 day retreat in the mountains of sunny norther New Mexico, as we explore mindfulness meditation with the stresses of the health care provider in mind. 8.5 CME credit hours, spouses welcome. Scholarships available.
   http://www.vallecitos.org/events/mindfulness-101-for-physicians-and-health-care-providers

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6. 6. theWrathe 09:58 AM 10/24/12

   I think you're missing the point. She didn't say inward attention is newly discovered. She said a *different* brain structure has been identified that controls inward attention. THAT's what's new. No where does eastern thought suggest it's a different brain structure. I'd submit that you're showing your own bias in *assuming* she's ignoring eastern though. It's not even relevant to her point. She goes on to speculate that this pathway might underlie why "taking a deep breath" or mediation calms the mind. WHY that worked, from the perspective of physical brain structure, was not understood before.

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