ViSA: A neurodynamic model for visuo-spatial working memory, attentional blink, and conscious access.

Abstract

Two separate lines of study have clarified the role of selectivity in conscious access to visual information. Both involve presenting multiple targets and distracters: one simultaneously in a spatially distributed fashion, the other sequentially at a single location. To understand their findings in a unified framework, we propose a neurodynamic model for Visual Selection and Awareness (ViSA). ViSA supports the view that neural representations for conscious access and visuo-spatial working memory are globally distributed and are based on recurrent interactions between perceptual and access control processors. Its flexible global workspace mechanisms enable a unitary account of a broad range of effects: It accounts for the limited storage capacity of visuo-spatial working memory, attentional cueing, and efficient selection with multi-object displays, as well as for the attentional blink and associated sparing and masking effects. In particular, the speed of consolidation for storage in visuo-spatial working memory in ViSA is not fixed but depends adaptively on the input and recurrent signaling. Slowing down of consolidation due to weak bottom-up and recurrent input as a result of brief presentation and masking leads to the attentional blink. Thus, ViSA goes beyond earlier 2-stage and neuronal global workspace accounts of conscious processing limitations.

The interplay of attention and consciousness in visual search, attentional blink and working memory consolidation

“…Indeed, in some conditions consciously accessible information in I2 can return to an inaccessible level (I1). For example, in the AB phenomenon (see below), previously accessible information about the second target (in I2) can subsequently become inaccessible (in I1) due to a combination of masking [39][40][41] and selection failure [42]. Unconscious, preconscious and conscious neural representations appear to a remarkable extent dynamic and interactive, and to depend in different ways on top-down attentional processes.…”

“…Recently, we have shown how a neurodynamic model called ViSA (standing for visual selection and awareness) provides a unifying computational account for a range of key AB effects, in combination with a set of VWM effects [40]. The sparing effects associated with the AB are accounted for by a mid-level representation of multiple targets.…”

Perceptual awareness and its neural basis: bridging experimental and theoretical paradigms

“…The second target is often not detected when presented within a few hundred milliseconds after the first one. Whereas this phenomenon has initially been treated in terms of attentional limitations, later studies have emphasized the role of control operations distinct from attention [34][35][36]. Another example is inattentional blindness.…”

Rapid switching and complementary evidence accumulation enable flexibility of an all-or-none global workspace for control of attentional and conscious processing: a reply to Wyble et al .

“…These simulations will also enable a detailed comparison with other simulation-based models of the AB and WM encoding, including eSTST [10][11][12] and ViSA [9]. Given the broad explanatory scope of TAC, the simulations also need to deal with a range of other phenomena and effects, such as in visual search and dual-performance tasks.…”

“…Global workspace (GW) models (e.g. [2]) face particular difficulties in accounting for such evidence, given that their processing limitations are based on a strict winner-take-all principle (however, see [9] for a neural model enabling parallel target encoding in the GW). Wyble et al [7] acknowledge that while retaining the notion of GW, TAC attempts to go beyond such models, in particular by introducing an 'intermediate buffer' mechanism.…”