Attention induces conservative subjective biases in visual perception

Rahnev, Dobromir; Maniscalco, Brian; Graves, Tashina; Huang, Elliott; Lange, Floris P. de; Lau, Hakwan

doi:10.1038/nn.2948

Cited by 201 publications

(352 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…It has recently been argued that attention and consciousness are distinct processes, as evinced by experiments demonstrating that spatial attention can independently modulate discrimination performance and subjective visibility (43,44). In experiment 1, we found that temporal predictions, with short delays, increased both subject and objective measures of perception, revealing no indication of independent modulation.…”

Section: Posterior Alpha-band Oscillations As a Substrate For The Topcontrasting

confidence: 49%

Top-down control of the phase of alpha-band oscillations as a mechanism for temporal prediction

Samaha

Bauer

Cimaroli

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

221

179

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The physiological state of the brain before an incoming stimulus has substantial consequences for subsequent behavior and neural processing. For example, the phase of ongoing posterior alpha-band oscillations (8–14 Hz) immediately before visual stimulation has been shown to predict perceptual outcomes and downstream neural activity. Although this phenomenon suggests that these oscillations may phasically route information through functional networks, many accounts treat these periodic effects as a consequence of ongoing activity that is independent of behavioral strategy. Here, we investigated whether alpha-band phase can be guided by top-down control in a temporal cueing task. When participants were provided with cues predictive of the moment of visual target onset, discrimination accuracy improved and targets were more frequently reported as consciously seen, relative to unpredictive cues. This effect was accompanied by a significant shift in the phase of alpha-band oscillations, before target onset, toward each participant’s optimal phase for stimulus discrimination. These findings provide direct evidence that forming predictions about when a stimulus will appear can bias the phase of ongoing alpha-band oscillations toward an optimal phase for visual processing, and may thus serve as a mechanism for the top-down control of visual processing guided by temporal predictions.

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Section: Posterior Alpha-band Oscillations As a Substrate For The Topcontrasting

confidence: 49%

Top-down control of the phase of alpha-band oscillations as a mechanism for temporal prediction

Samaha

Bauer

Cimaroli

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

221

179

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Mark's (1972) proposal that such modulation operates by influencing the variance of magnitude representations provides a key theoretical element in the model we will describe below. The hypothesis that attention operates in part by modulating variability in an internal representation is also consistent with findings concerning visual detection and discrimination tasks (Dosher & Lu, 2000;Rahnev et al, 2011).…”

Section: Reference-point Modelssupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Marks, 1972). In the present model, variances increase exponentially with distance from the reference point; however, a variety of neural mechanisms for gain control could potentially implement the impact of attention on gain control (Dosher & Lu, 2000;Rahnev et al, 2011; for a review see Reynolds & Chelazzi, 2004).…”

Section: Reference Points In Symbolic Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 93%

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Chen

Holyoak

2014

Cognitive Psychology

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a b s t r a c tHumans and other primates are able to make relative magnitude comparisons, both with perceptual stimuli and with symbolic inputs that convey magnitude information. Although numerous models of magnitude comparison have been proposed, the basic question of how symbolic magnitudes (e.g., size or intelligence of animals) are derived and represented in memory has received little attention. We argue that symbolic magnitudes often will not correspond directly to elementary features of individual concepts. Rather, magnitudes may be formed in working memory based on computations over more basic features stored in long-term memory. We present a model of how magnitudes can be acquired and compared based on BARTlet, a representationally simpler version of Bayesian Analogy with Relational Transformations (BART; Lu, Chen, & Holyoak, 2012). BARTlet operates on distributions of magnitude variables created by applying dimension-specific weights (learned with the aid of empirical priors derived from pre-categorical comparisons) to more primitive features of objects. The resulting magnitude distributions, formed and maintained in working memory, are sensitive to contextual influences such as the range of stimuli and polarity of the question. By incorporating psychological reference points that control the precision of magnitudes in working memory and applying the tools of signal detection theory, BARTlet is able to account for a wide range of empirical phenomena involving magnitude comparisons, including the symbolic distance effect and the semantic congruity effect. We discuss the role of reference points in cognitive and social decision-making, and implications for the evolution of relational representations.

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“…In short, the overflow argument has come under pressure both empirically [27][28][29]33,35], and conceptually [27-34] largely on the basis of 'change blindness'. At the same time, support for overflow has come from experiments employing other paradigms [8,9,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%