Signal enhancement and suppression during visual-spatial selective attention.
Summary of "Signal enhancement and suppression during visual-spatial selective attention."
Selective attention involves the relative enhancement of relevant versus irrelevant stimuli. However, whether this relative enhancement involves primarily enhancement of attended stimuli, or suppression of irrelevant stimuli, remains controversial. Moreover, if both enhancement and suppression are involved, whether they result from a single mechanism or separate mechanisms during attentional control or selection is not known. In two experiments using a spatial cuing paradigm with task-relevant targets and irrelevant distractors, target, and distractor processing was examined as a function of distractor expectancy. Additionally, in the second study the interaction of perceptual load and distractor expectancy was explored. In both experiments, distractors were either validly cued (70%) or invalidly cued (30%) in order to examine the effects of distractor expectancy on attentional control as well as target and distractor processing. The effects of distractor expectancy were assessed using event-related potentials recorded during the cue-to-target period (preparatory attention) and in response to the task-relevant target stimuli (selective stimulus processing). Analyses of distractor-present displays (anticipated versus unanticipated), showed modulations in brain activity during both the preparatory period and during target processing. The pattern of brain responses suggest both facilitation of attended targets and suppression of unattended distractors. These findings provide evidence for a two-process model of visual-spatial selective attention, where one mechanism (facilitation) influences relevant stimuli and another (suppression) acts to filter distracting stimuli.
Affiliation
School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002, USA. jcouperus@hampshire.edu
Journal Details
This article was published in the following journal.
Name: Brain research
ISSN: 1872-6240
Pages: 155-77
Links
- PubMed Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20807513
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2010.08.076
Medical and Biotech [MESH] Definitions
Receptor Cross-talk
The simultaneous or sequential binding of multiple cell surface receptors to different ligands resulting in coordinated stimulation or suppression of signal transduction.
Dementia
An acquired organic mental disorder with loss of intellectual abilities of sufficient severity to interfere with social or occupational functioning. The dysfunction is multifaceted and involves memory, behavior, personality, judgment, attention, spatial relations, language, abstract thought, and other executive functions. The intellectual decline is usually progressive, and initially spares the level of consciousness.
Perceptual Disorders
Cognitive disorders characterized by an impaired ability to perceive the nature of objects or concepts through use of the sense organs. These include spatial neglect syndromes, where an individual does not attend to visual, auditory, or sensory stimuli presented from one side of the body.
Attentional Blink
Temporary visual deficit or impaired visual processing occurring in a rapid serial visual presentation task. After a person identifies the first of two visual targets, the ability to detect the second target is impaired for the next few hundred milliseconds. This phenomenon is called attentional blink.
Visual Acuity
Clarity or sharpness of OCULAR VISION or the ability of the eye to see fine details. Visual acuity depends on the functions of RETINA, neuronal transmission, and the interpretative ability of the brain. Normal visual acuity is expressed as 20/20 indicating that one can see at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. Visual acuity can also be influenced by brightness, color, and contrast.
PubMed Articles
A central question in the field of attention is whether visual processing is a strictly limited resource, which must be allocated by selective attention. If this were the case, attentional enhancement...
Using neuronal populations to study the mechanisms underlying spatial and feature attention.
Visual attention affects both perception and neuronal responses. Whether the same neuronal mechanisms mediate spatial attention, which improves perception of attended locations, and nonspatial forms o...
Variations of response time (RT) in selective attention tasks are often associated with variations of activity and functional connectivity in sensory cortices that process relevant stimuli. Here, we i...
Signal detection evidence for limited capacity in visual search.
The nature of capacity limits (if any) in visual search has been a topic of controversy for decades. In 30 years of work, researchers have attempted to distinguish between two broad classes of visual...
Neural Strategies for Selective Attention Distinguish Fast-Action Video Game Players.
We investigated the psychophysical and neurophysiological differences between fast-action video game players (specifically first person shooter players, FPS) and non-action players (role-playing game...
Clinical Trials
Visual Selective Attention in Parkinson's Disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), which is generally considered to be a motor disorder, is now known to be accompanied in many instances by a variety of cognitive defects. This can be explained co...
The purpose of this research study is to examine the effects of prism adaptation or bromocriptine treatment on two visual-spatial recovery components. After a stroke, an "internal GPS", l...
A Model to Identify Specific Predictors of Spatial Neglect Recovery
This study examines methods to better predict improvement of a hidden disability of functional vision, spatial neglect, following stroke. Spatial neglect is a tendency to make visual judg...
Spatial Neglect and Bias in Near and Far Space
The purpose of this research study is to learn how people distribute their visual attention when looking at objects nearby versus far away, and why vision may become distracted at near ver...
Reading can be an uncomfortable and difficult task for some people. Symptoms include unpleasant somatic and perceptual effects, such as eye-strain, headache, and blurred text, despite norm...
