Attentional interference at small spatial separations

Bahcall, Dan O; Kowler, Eileen

doi:10.1016/s0042-6989(98)00090-x

Cited by 191 publications

(200 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Prior behavioral and physiological studies of the spatial distribution of attention, however, have provided mixed results, either in favor of a simple spatial gradient (18)(19)(20)(21)(22), or consistent with an inhibitory zone (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(42)(43)(44). The present study demonstrates unequivocally that attending to an object leads to a ring of inhibition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 41%

Direct neurophysiological evidence for spatial suppression surrounding the focus of attention in vision

Hopf

Boehler

Luck

et al. 2006

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

229

184

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The spatial focus of attention has traditionally been envisioned as a simple spatial gradient of enhanced activity that falls off monotonically with increasing distance. Here, we show with highdensity magnetoencephalographic recordings in human observers that the focus of attention is not a simple monotonic gradient but instead contains an excitatory peak surrounded by a narrow inhibitory region. To demonstrate this center-surround profile, we asked subjects to focus attention onto a color pop-out target and then presented probe stimuli at various distances from the target. We observed that the electromagnetic response to the probe was enhanced when the probe was presented at the location of the target, but the probe response was suppressed in a narrow zone surrounding the target and then recovered at more distant locations. Withdrawing attention from the pop-out target by engaging observers in a demanding foveal task eliminated this pattern, confirming a truly attention-driven effect. These results indicate that neural enhancement and suppression coexist in a spatially structured manner that is optimal to attenuate the most deleterious noise during visual object identification.attention ͉ magnetoencephalography ͉ visual I t is a common experience that one is able to focus on relevant parts of a visual scene even when irrelevant parts of the scene are more salient. It has been suggested that this voluntary focusing is mediated by a biasing of competitive stimulus interactions in the visual cortex, which promotes preferential processing of relevant over irrelevant input (1-3). This competitive advantage can be achieved by enhancing the processing of relevant inputs or by attenuating the processing of irrelevant inputs. Evidence has accumulated that attention operates by means of both neural enhancement (4-7) and neural suppression (8-13). More recent data from functional MRI in humans indicate that enhancement and suppression may cooperate across the visual scene (14, 15), leading to an increase in selectivity in a push-pull-like manner (15). That is, a spatially organized combination of enhancement and suppression may effectively sharpen the demarcation of relevant from irrelevant inputs, particularly in cluttered visual scenes in which neural representations of relevant and irrelevant information may become mixed together (16, 17) .Many behavioral and electrophysiological studies of attention have indicated that attending to a location produces a monotonic gradient of processing efficiency around the attended location (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). In contrast, computational models motivated by the known anatomy and physiology of the primate visual system have predicted that the spatial distribution of cortical activity around the focus of attention may be more complex than a simple gradient. In particular, the selective tuning model (ST) of Tsotsos et al. (23,24) proposes an architecture of attentional selection that explicitly predicts a suppressive zone surrounding the focus of attention. In short, ST provides an acc...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 41%

Direct neurophysiological evidence for spatial suppression surrounding the focus of attention in vision

Hopf

Boehler

Luck

et al. 2006

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

229

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In addition, visual attention is characterized by an inhibitory surround: processing of stimuli outside of but near the focus of attention is suppressed (e.g. [6][7][8]). These findings are paralleled by neurophysiological studies which have shown that visual attention enhances neural responsiveness and selectivity [9,10] and that the neural response to non-attended stimuli near the focus of attention is inhibited ( [11]; for a review, see [12]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual attention and stability

Mathôt

Theeuwes

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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In the present review, we address the relationship between attention and visual stability. Even though with each eye, head and body movement the retinal image changes dramatically, we perceive the world as stable and are able to perform visually guided actions. However, visual stability is not as complete as introspection would lead us to believe. We attend to only a few items at a time and stability is maintained only for those items. There appear to be two distinct mechanisms underlying visual stability. The first is a passive mechanism: the visual system assumes the world to be stable, unless there is a clear discrepancy between the pre-and post-saccadic image of the region surrounding the saccade target. This is related to the pre-saccadic shift of attention, which allows for an accurate preview of the saccade target. The second is an active mechanism: information about attended objects is remapped within retinotopic maps to compensate for eye movements. The locus of attention itself, which is also characterized by localized retinotopic activity, is remapped as well. We conclude that visual attention is crucial in our perception of a stable world.

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“…That this is the case has been known for quite some time (Pan & Eriksen, 1993;Sereno & Kosslyn, 1991), but not until recently has the link with biased competition been made explicit (Bahcall & Kowler, 1999;Caputo & Guerra, 1998 When a distractor was presented simultaneously with or directly following a target, it produced more interference when it was presented in the same visual hemifield as the target than when it was presented in the opposite visual field. This result is interpreted in terms of biased competition; there is more competition between stimuli when they are presented in the same visual field, rather than in opposite visual fields.…”

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confidence: 99%