In defense of the salience map: Salience rather than visibility determines selection.

In the model proposed by Findlay & Walker, the programming of saccadic eye movements is achieved by two parallel processes, one dedicated to the coding of saccade metrics (Where) and the other controlling saccade initiation (When). One outcome of the “winner-take-all” characteristics of the salience map, the main node of the model, is an independence between the metrics and the latency of saccades. We report on some observations, made in the head-unrestrained cat under pathological conditions, of a correlation between accuracy and latency of saccadic gaze shifts. To account for such a correlation, the link between metrics specification (Where) and saccade triggering (When) should be amended in the model.

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Frontal eye field: A cortical salience map

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x99492155 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 699-700 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kirk G. Thompson ◽

Narcisse P. Bichot

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Frontal Eye Field ◽

Frontal Eye Fields ◽

Eye Field ◽

Salience Map ◽

Saccade Generation

The concept of a salience map has become important for the development of theories of visual attention and saccade generation. Recent studies have shown that the frontal eye fields have all of the characteristics of a salience map.

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Salience Representation in the Parietal and Frontal Cortex

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2009.21233 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 22 (5) ◽

pp. 918-930 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Alexandre Zenon ◽

Nabil Filali ◽

Jean-René Duhamel ◽

Etienne Olivier

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Reporting Rate ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

Dual Tasks ◽

Visual Item ◽

Two Factors ◽

The Right ◽

Salience Map

Some objects in the visual field are more likely to attract attention because they are either intrinsically eye catching or relevant in the context of a particular task. These two factors, known as stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors, respectively, are thought to be integrated into a unique salience map, possibly located in the frontal or the parietal cortex. However, the distinct contribution of these two regions to salience representation is difficult to establish experimentally and remains debated. In an attempt to address this issue, we designed several dual tasks composed of a letter reporting task and a visual search task, allowing us to quantify the salience of each visual item by measuring its probability to be selected by attention. In Experiment 1, the salience of the visual search items depended on a combination of conspicuity and relevance factors, whereas in Experiment 2, stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors were tested separately. Then, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to interfere transiently with the function of the right angular gyrus (ANG) or right FEFs in healthy subjects performing these dual tasks. We found that interfering with the ANG and the FEF function specifically altered the influence of salience on the letter report rate without affecting the overall letter reporting rate, suggesting that these areas are involved in salience representation. In particular, the present study suggests that ANG is involved in goal-directed salience representation, whereas FEF would rather house a global salience map integrating both goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors.

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Attention-Generated Apparent Motion

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794607.003.0072 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Zhong-Lin Lu ◽

George Sperling

Keyword(s):

Apparent Motion ◽

Top Down ◽

Third Order ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Motion Feature ◽

Motion System ◽

System A ◽

Salient Stimulus ◽

Stimulus Features ◽

Salience Map

This chapter explores attention-generated apparent motion. A flickering display can seem to appear to move in opposite directions depending on which feature the observer attends to in the display. The illusory motion, generated by attention, demonstrates the mechanism of the third-order motion system: a dynamic salience map of the locations of the most salient stimulus features is determined jointly by stimulus strength (bottom-up) and by selective attention (top-down). Motion is computed directly and automatically from the salience map. Concepts covered in this chapter include apparent motion, first-order motion and second-order motion, feature tracking, salience maps, bottom-up processing, and top-down processing.

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