Feature-based attention and the suppression of non-relevant object features

Abstract

Feature-directed attention has been recently studied in various psychophysical, electrophysiological, and imaging studies. Convincing evidence has been obtained for its global effectiveness, but there is a debate about the processing fate of non-attended target features. A number of studies demonstrated feature-directed attention being associated with co-selection of non-relevant object features, thus resulting in selection of the entire object, whereas most other studies did not examine the extent to which processing of non-attended features was affected. Here, we present the results of two psychophysical experiments consisting of a Posner-like paradigm in which subjects were cued either to an individual feature or the entire object. We measured reaction times to changes in speed or colour of one of two simultaneously presented gratings. Our results strongly support the view that feature-based selection is a unique selection process different from object-based selection in that it can be associated with active suppression of non-relevant features.

Feature saliency affects delayed matching of an attended feature

“…These results are consistent with the previous findings showing that attention to a task-relevant feature selectively enhances the FEATURE MEMORY 723 neural representation of the attended feature (see Maunsell & Treue, 2006, for a review). The feature-based attentional modulation is independent of space and objecthood, which has been demonstrated in psychophysical (Rossi & Paradiso, 1995;Wegener, Ehn, Aurich, Galashan, & Kreiter, 2008), neurophysiological (Treue & Martinez Trujillo, 1999), electrophysiological (Nobre, Rao, & Chelazzi, 2006), and neuroimaging studies (Saenz, Buracas, & Boynton, 2002). More importantly, our results revealed that top-down attentional modulation cannot fully override the influence of bottom-up stimulus saliency on matching a task-relevant feature.…”

Task-relevant and Task-irrelevant Dimensions Are Modulated Independently at a Task-irrelevant Location

“…It is possible, when conditions are such that it is advantageous to select one feature of an object over another, for feature-based attention to override object-based effects (i.e., only the attended feature is enhanced; Wegener et al, 2007). However, if there is no reason to actively inhibit the task-irrelevant feature, attention tends to work in an object-based manner.…”

“…For instance, task-relevant features can be prioritized over task-irrelevant features if task conditions favor such a strategy (Wegener, Ehn, Aurich, Galashan, & Kreiter, 2007). Although our task required that subjects prioritize color over motion when the stimulus first appeared (so he or she would know which dots to attend to), once they had selected the appropriate dots there was no need to prioritize color over motion and thus no reason to suppress the task-irrelevant dimension.…”

Attentional spreading to task-irrelevant object features: experimental support and a 3-step model of attention for object-based selection and feature-based processing modulation

“…However, psychophysical, imaging, and electrophysiological studies showed that attending towards a certain object feature is associated with enhanced processing of that feature throughout the visual field (Rossi and Paradiso, 1995; Treue and Martínez Trujillo, 1999; McAdams and Maunsell, 2000; Saenz et al, 2002; Arman et al, 2006; Müller et al, 2006; Serences and Boynton, 2007). In addition, various recent studies indicated that selection of a single target-object feature may result in suppression of other, task-irrelevant features of that object (Fanini et al, 2006; Nobre et al, 2006; Cant et al, 2008; Polk et al, 2008; Wegener et al, 2008; Serences et al, 2009; Taya et al, 2009; Xu, 2010; Freeman et al, 2014). …”