" Active, focused attention to a specific attribute such as color, they discovered, ramps up the activity of brain regions that process color. In other words, the parts of the brain that process color in an automatic, “hard-wired” way are significantly and specifically activated by the willful act of focusing on color. Activity in brain areas that passively process motion are amplified when volunteers focus attention on motion; areas that passively process shape get ramped up when the volunteers focus on shape. Brain activity in a circuit that is physiologically dedicated to a particular task is markedly amplified by the mental act of focusing attention on the feature that the circuit is hard-wired to process. "

― Jeffrey M. Schwartz , The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force