Parietal mechanisms of target representation.

Recent single-neuron recordings show that representation of the external environment in the parietal lobe is highly selective for objects that are immediately relevant to behavior. Parietal neurons change their selectivity in accordance to immediate behavioral needs, integrate evidence about behavioral relevance from multiple sources, and appear to actively participate in the selection of potential behavioral targets. The selective parietal representations may represent a general-purpose attentional mechanism that can simultaneously specify targets for exploratory movements and for perception.