Feature-based attention influences motion processing gain in macaque visual cortex

By Stefan Treue, J. Trujillo. 1999

Changes in neural responses based on spatial attention have been demonstrated in many areas of visual cortex, indicating that the neural correlate of attention is an enhanced response to stimuli at an attended location and reduced responses to stimuli elsewhere. Here we demonstrate non-spatial, feature-based attentional modulation of visual motion processing, and show that attention increases the gain of direction-selective neurons in visual cortical area MT without narrowing the direction-tuning curves. These findings place important constraints on the neural mechanisms of attention and we propose to unify the effects of spatial location, direction of motion and other features of the attended stimuli in a ‘feature similarity gain model’ of attention.

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Citations in the corpus

The Normalization Model of Attention (2009, background): “…that attention increases neuronal responses multiplicatively by applying a fixed response gain factor (McAdams and Maunsell, 1999; Treue and Martinez-Trujillo, 1999), while others are more in keeping with a change in contrast gain (Li and Basso, 2008; Martinez-Trujillo and Treue, 2002;…”
Mechanisms of evoked and induced responses in MEG/EEG (2006, background): “A common example of gain effects, in a psychophysiological context, is the effect of attention (McAdams and Maunsell, 1999; Treue and Martinez-Trujillo, 1999).”
Feature-based attention in visual cortex. (2006, methodology): “This has led to the ‘feature-similarity gain model’ proposed by Treue and Martinez-Trujillo [ 19 ], in which the change in gain of a visual neuron depends on the similarity of the features of the current behaviorally relevant target and the response selectivities of the neuron.”
Covert attention increases spatial resolution with or without masks: support for signal enhancement. (2002, background): “and results in stronger and more selective responses in both V4 and MT/MST neurons (e.g., Desimone & Duncan, 1995; McAdams & Maunsell, 1999; Reynolds & Desimone, 1999; Treue & Martinez-Trujillo, 1999 ) and fMRI studies have shown attentional modulation in striate and extrastriate visual cortex (e.g”
Mechanisms of visual attention in the human cortex. (2000, background): “Response enhancement has also been shown in dorsal stream areas, such as MT (Treue & Maunsell 1996, Treue & Martinez 1999) and the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area (Bushnell et al 1981, Colby et al 1996).”