A physiological correlate of the 'spotlight' of visual attention

Brefczynski, Julie A.; DeYoe, Edgar A.

doi:10.1038/7280

Cited by 665 publications

(462 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Heinze and colleagues (Heinze et al, 1994) demonstrated with positron emission tomography (PET) that spatial attention leads to stronger activations in extrastriate cortex in the hemisphere contralateral to the attended side of a stimulus array spanning both hemifields. With the advent of fMRI and its greater spatial resolution, it has been shown that spatial attention exhibits fine retinotopy Brefczynski and DeYoe, 1999). In fact, the cortical topography of purely attention-driven activity precisely matches the topography of activity evoked by visual targets as revealed by retinotopic mapping.…”

Section: The Effect Of Attention On Sensory Processingmentioning

confidence: 89%

Neuroimaging Studies of Attention: From Modulation of Sensory Processing to Top-Down Control

2003

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Section: The Effect Of Attention On Sensory Processingmentioning

confidence: 89%

Neuroimaging Studies of Attention: From Modulation of Sensory Processing to Top-Down Control

2003

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“…Extensive activations also involved the medial occipital lobes (cuneus and lingual gyrus) bilaterally, extending anteriorly into the precuneus and posterior parahippocampal gyrus. These medial occipital activations, which likely reflect shifts of attention from foveal to peripheral visual locations (Brefczynski & DeYoe, 1999;Kastner et al, 1999;Tootell et al, 1998), are not relevant to the aims of this study and will not be discussed further. Additional activations involved the left frontoparietal operculum and supramarginal gyrus, right dorsal prefrontal cortex (MFG and superior frontal sulcus), bilateral suborbital sulcus and gyrus rectus, left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), left mid-cingulate gyrus, and right angular gyrus.…”

Section: Fmrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional and linguistic interactions in speech perception

et al. 2008

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The role of attention in speech comprehension is not well understood. We used fMRI to study the neural correlates of auditory word, pseudoword, and nonspeech (spectrally-rotated speech) perception during a bimodal (auditory, visual) selective attention task. In three conditions, Attend Auditory (ignore visual), Ignore Auditory (attend visual), and Visual (no auditory stimulation), 28 subjects performed a one-back matching task in the assigned attended modality. The visual task, attending to rapidly presented Japanese characters, was designed to be highly demanding in order to prevent attention to the simultaneously presented auditory stimuli. Regardless of stimulus type, attention to the auditory channel enhanced activation by the auditory stimuli (Attend Auditory > Ignore Auditory) in bilateral posterior superior temporal regions and left inferior frontal cortex. Across attentional conditions, there were main effects of speech processing (word + pseudoword > rotated speech) in left orbitofrontal cortex and several posterior right hemisphere regions, though these areas also showed strong interactions with attention (larger speech effects in the Attend Auditory than in the Ignore Auditory condition) and no significant speech effects in the Ignore Auditory condition. Several other regions, including the postcentral gyri, left supramarginal gyrus, and temporal lobes bilaterally, showed similar interactions due to the presence of speech effects only in the Attend Auditory condition. Main effects of lexicality (word > pseudoword) were isolated to a small region of the left lateral prefrontal cortex. Examination of this region showed significant word > pseudoword activation only in the Attend Auditory condition. Several other brain regions, including left ventromedial frontal lobe, left dorsal prefrontal cortex, and left middle temporal gyrus, showed attention × lexicality interactions due to the presence of lexical activation only in the Attend Auditory condition. These results support a model in which neutral speech presented in an unattended sensory channel undergoes relatively little processing beyond the early perceptual level. Specifically, processing of phonetic and lexical-semantic information appears to be very limited in such circumstances, consistent with prior behavioral studies.

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“…For one, attending a location boosts the neural activity to elements presented at that location (Brefczynski & DeYoe, 1999;Datta & DeYoe, 2009;Gandhi, Heeger, & Boynton, 1999;Somers, Dale, Seiffert, & Tootell, 1999). It has further been suggested that attending both rival images leads to a boost in the neural response, which increases the effective contrast of rivaling images (Paffen et al, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

Shifting spatial attention makes you flip: Exogenous visual attention triggers perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry

Paffen

Stigchel

2010

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Although it has been argued that visual attention and the dynamics of binocular rivalry are closely linked, strong evidence for this proposition is still lacking. Here, we investigate how perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry are affected by spatial attention by employing a cuing paradigm. We show a tight link between the occurrence of perceptual alternations and the spatiotemporal properties of visual attention: Alternations occurred earlier and more frequently at locations where visual attention was summoned by an exogenous cue. We argue that cuing a location where rival images are presented leads to a transient increase in the effective contrast of these rival images. This transient increase in effective contrast increases the probability of an alternation at that location. Furthermore, we suggest that an occipito-fronto-parietal network known to be involved in selective attention and binocular rivalry mediates perceptual alternations by boosting the neural response at attended locations.

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A physiological correlate of the 'spotlight' of visual attention

Cited by 665 publications

References 30 publications

Neuroimaging Studies of Attention: From Modulation of Sensory Processing to Top-Down Control

Neuroimaging Studies of Attention: From Modulation of Sensory Processing to Top-Down Control

Attentional and linguistic interactions in speech perception

Shifting spatial attention makes you flip: Exogenous visual attention triggers perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry

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