Endogenous attention (also called voluntary, goal-directed, or top-down attention) is the deliberate allocation of processing resources based on the observer's goals, expectations, and plans. When you search a crowd for a friend's face, monitor a specific instrument reading, or focus on a lecturer's words while ignoring background noise, you are deploying endogenous attention. This form of attention is slower to engage than exogenous attention but can be sustained and flexibly directed.
Characteristics and Time Course
In Posner's cueing paradigm, an informative central cue (such as an arrow pointing left or right) that predicts the likely target location produces facilitation at the cued location. Unlike exogenous cueing, endogenous cueing is slower to develop (requiring 300+ ms), requires a valid cue (the observer must believe the cue is informative), is sustained (maintained as long as the cue is relevant), and is effortful (reduced under cognitive load).
Endogenous attention can be directed not only to spatial locations but also to specific features (attend to red items), objects (attend to one of two overlapping transparent surfaces), and temporal moments (attend to a predicted time of target onset). This flexibility reflects the role of high-level cognitive representations in guiding attention.
Endogenous attention can be shifted covertly — without moving the eyes — or overtly — by directing a saccadic eye movement to the attended location. While these typically co-occur, they can be dissociated experimentally. Covert attentional shifts precede saccades and can be directed to locations different from the saccade target, though the premotor theory of attention proposes a tight coupling between spatial attention and the programming of eye movements.
Neural Substrates
Endogenous attention is controlled by a dorsal frontoparietal network including the frontal eye fields (FEF) and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). These regions generate top-down biasing signals that modulate processing in sensory cortex, enhancing neural responses to attended stimuli and suppressing responses to unattended stimuli. Single-unit recordings in monkeys show that neurons in FEF and IPS carry signals representing the current attentional target, and these signals precede attentional modulation in visual cortex.
Interactions with Exogenous Attention
In natural behavior, endogenous and exogenous attention continuously interact. A strong endogenous set can reduce or prevent exogenous capture by irrelevant distractors (contingent capture), while a highly salient stimulus can override endogenous control. The balance between these two systems determines what we attend to at any moment — a balance between our goals and the demands of the environment. Understanding this balance is critical for designing environments that support focused attention rather than undermining it.