Independent spatiotemporal effects of spatial attention and background clutter on human object location representations

Graumann, Monika; Wallenwein, Lara A; Cichy, Radoslaw Martin

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120053

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 89 publications

(198 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, additional studies could use more diverse stimuli over faces and names, including multisensory ones as a combination of auditory and visual, to replicate and extend the findings to other sensory domains. Furthermore, naturalistic contexts that include different levels of competition could be key to transfer the results to the real environment (Graumann et al, 2022(Graumann et al, , 2023.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Related to this, it may be of interest including multisensory stimuli such as visual and auditory combinations, to replicate and extend the findings to other sensory domains. Furthermore, naturalistic contexts that include different levels of competition could be key to transfer the results to the real environment (Graumann et al, 2022(Graumann et al, , 2023. Lastly, although our study focuses on preparatory activity, it would be interesting to explore the relationship between attentional templates and target processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Proactive selective attention across competition contexts

Aguado-López,

Palenciano,

Peñalver

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Selective attention is a cognitive function that helps filter out unwanted information. Theories as the biased competition model (Desimone & Duncan, 1995) explain how attentional templates bias processing towards targets in contexts where multiple stimuli compete for resources. However, it is unclear how the anticipation of different levels of competition influences the nature of attentional templates, in a proactive fashion. In this study, we used EEG to investigate how the anticipated demands of attentional selection (either high or low stimuli competition contexts) modulate target-specific preparatory brain activity and its relationship with task performance. To do so, participants performed a sex judgement task in a cue-target paradigm where, depending on the block, target and distractor stimuli appeared simultaneously (high competition) or sequentially (low competition). Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) showed that, in both competition contexts, there was a preactivation of the target category to select with a ramping-up profile at the end of the preparatory interval. However, cross-classification showed no generalization across competition conditions, suggesting different preparatory representational formats. Notably, time-frequency analyses showed differences between anticipated competition demands, reflecting larger theta band power for high than low competition, which mediated the impact of subsequent stimuli competition on behavioral performance. Overall, our results show that, whereas preactivation of the internal templates associated with the category to select are engaged in advance in both competition contexts, their underlying neural patterns differ. In addition, these codes could not be associated with theta power, suggesting different preparatory processes. The implications of these findings are crucial to increase our understanding of the nature of top-down processes across different contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%