Bridging the Gap between Monkey Neurophysiology and Human Perception: An Ambiguity Resolution Theory of Visual Selective Attention

Luck, Steven J.; Girelli, Massimo; McDermott, Michele; Ford, Michelle A.

doi:10.1006/cogp.1997.0660

Cited by 414 publications

(496 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The balance of excitation and inhibition would provide guidance to attentional shifts towards the most likely target(s) representations [31,63,64]. To enable attentional shifting, spatial encoding must be available to LIP, FEF and the pulvinar [94,104].…”

Section: (I) From Visual Features To Proto-objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Raffone

Srinivasan

Leeuwen

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Despite the acknowledged relationship between consciousness and attention, theories of the two have mostly been developed separately. Moreover, these theories have independently attempted to explain phenomena in which both are likely to interact, such as the attentional blink (AB) and working memory (WM) consolidation. Here, we make an effort to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, a theory of consciousness based on the notion of global workspace (GW) and, on the other, a synthesis of theories of visual attention. We offer a theory of attention and consciousness (TAC) that provides a unified neurocognitive account of several phenomena associated with visual search, AB and WM consolidation. TAC assumes multiple processing stages between early visual representation and conscious access, and extends the dynamics of the global neuronal workspace model to a visual attentional workspace (VAW). The VAWis controlled by executive routers, higher-order representations of executive operations in the GW, without the need for explicit saliency or priority maps. TAC leads to newly proposed mechanisms for illusory conjunctions, AB, inattentional blindness and WM capacity, and suggests neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Finally, the theory reconciles the all-or-none and graded perspectives on conscious representation

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Section: (I) From Visual Features To Proto-objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This higher-order ignition is assumed to take place rapidly after stimulus presentation, and be caused by cluttered displays (scenes) with spatially distributed target features bringing neuronal coding ambiguities [63][64][65]. There is evidence that FEF (e.g.…”

Section: (I) From Visual Features To Proto-objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Raffone

Srinivasan

Leeuwen

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…It is isolated by subtracting activity at ipsilateral electrode sites from the corresponding activity at contralateral electrode sites (e.g., PO7/PO8). The N2pc typically starts about 180 ms after target onset and lasts about 100 ms. Luck and colleagues, who were the first to study this component meticulously in visual ERP latency differences 265 search tasks, suggested that the N2pc reflected distractor suppression processes (Luck & Hillyard, 1994;Luck, Girelli, McDermott, & Ford, 1997). Others, who have used bilateral displays with only one distractor, have argued that the N2pc reflected target enhancement processes (e.g., Eimer, 1996).…”

Section: Simulations For the N2pc Componentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement of ERP latency differences: A comparison of single‐participant and jackknife‐based scoring methods

et al. 2007

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We used computer simulations to evaluate different procedures for measuring changes in the onset latency of a representative range of event-related components (the auditory and visual N1, P3, N2pc, and the frequency-related P3 difference wave). These procedures included several techniques to determine onset latencies combined with approaches using both single-participant average waveforms and jackknife-subsample average waveforms. In general, the jackknife-based approach combined with the relative criterion technique or combined with the fractional area technique (J.C. Hansen & S.A. Hillyard, 1980; S.J. Luck, 2005) provided the most accurate method and the greatest statistical power, with no inflation of Type I error rate.Descriptors: ERP latency, Jackknife, N1, P3, N2pc, Frequency-related P3Research using event-related potentials (ERPs) often focuses on differences in amplitudes as well as differences in latencies of ERP components. However, for both measurements there are several scoring methods, and quite often researchers have to decide rather arbitrarily which method might be most appropriate. In this article we compare several methods for determining ERP latency differences. To evaluate the methods we ran computer simulations based on data of five ERP components: the visual N1, the auditory N1, the P3 (hereafter used to mean the P3b), the N2pc, and the frequency-related P3 component (infrequent minus frequent difference wave).These five components were chosen because they are very different and representative of a broad range of components, as is apparent from the following brief review of these components. The N1 components (visual, auditory) are relatively early components, strongly influenced by physical properties of the stimulus. They are characterized by a clear onset and a sharply increasing amplitude, but clearly reflect different underlying neural generators. In contrast, the P3 is a late component that is relatively insensitive to the physical properties of the stimulus (with the exception of tone intensity; see Covington & Polich, 1996), but is influenced by probabilities, expectations, and resource allocation (see Johnson, 1986). Quite often the P3 does not show a clear onset, and its peak latency is difficult to determine because the component has a wide temporal extension without a sharp peak. The N2pc and frequency-related P3, for their part, are measured from difference waves that are obtained by subtracting ERP waveforms computed at different electrode sites or at same electrode sites but in different experimental conditions. The N2pc is an index of the allocation of visualspatial attention and is isolated by subtracting the ERP at posterior electrode sites ipsilateral to an attended item from the ERP at the corresponding contralateral electrode site, whereas the frequency-related P3 is isolated by subtracting the ERP elicited by frequent targets from the ERP elicited by infrequent targets.For all components, researchers are often interested in estimating the latency differences a...

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“…Subjects searched for either a red target or a green target in an array of gray distractor objects, and the attention-related N2pc component (49,50) was used to measure the allocation of attention to the target. The red and green colors were highly salient features, making attentional control very easy.…”

Section: The Implementation Of Selection In Schizophreniamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Construct of Attention in Schizophrenia

Luck

Gold²

2008

Biological Psychiatry

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271

232

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Schizophrenia is widely thought to involve deficits of attention. However, the term attention can be defined so broadly that impaired performance on virtually any task could be construed as evidence for a deficit in attention, and this has slowed cumulative progress in understanding attention deficits in schizophrenia. To address this problem, we divide the general concept of attention into two distinct constructs: input selection, the selection of task-relevant inputs for further processing; and rule selection, the selective activation of task-appropriate rules. These constructs are closely tied to working memory, because input selection mechanisms are used to control the transfer of information into working memory and because working memory stores the rules used by rule selection mechanisms. These constructs are also closely tied to executive function, because executive systems are used to guide input selection and because rule selection is itself at key aspect of executive function. Within the domain of input selection, it is important to distinguish between the control of selection -the processes that guide attention to task-relevant inputs-and the implementation of selectionthe processes that enhance the processing of the relevant inputs and suppress the irrelevant inputs. Current evidence suggests that schizophrenia involves a significant impairment in the control of selection but little or no impairment in the implementation of selection. Consequently, the CNTRICS participants agreed by consensus that attentional control should be a priority target for measurement and treatment research in schizophrenia.Theorists have suggested that schizophrenia involves disorders of attention beginning with the original clinical descriptions of the illness (1,2). However, the term attention has many meanings, and impairment in almost any task could be construed as a consequence of a deficit in attention. The situation is further complicated by the fact that-even when narrowly defined -attention serves to modulate and enhance the functioning of other cognitive systems (e.g., perception, memory, response selection) and interacts extensively with working memory and executive control systems, making it difficult to isolate the role of impairments in attention from impairments in these other systems.The goal of this article is to present a framework for conceptualizing attention that derives from recent advances from the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. This framework can be used to organize both the types of experimental paradigms that are used to

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Bridging the Gap between Monkey Neurophysiology and Human Perception: An Ambiguity Resolution Theory of Visual Selective Attention

Cited by 414 publications

References 53 publications

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

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

Measurement of ERP latency differences: A comparison of single‐participant and jackknife‐based scoring methods

The Construct of Attention in Schizophrenia

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