scholarly journals The fate of task-irrelevant visual motion: Perceptual load versus feature-based attention

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 12-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Taya ◽  
W. J. Adams ◽  
E. W. Graf ◽  
N. Lavie
Keyword(s):  
Visual Motion ◽  
Perceptual Load ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Task Irrelevant

scholarly journals Dissociating Reward- and Attention-driven Biasing of Global Feature-based Selection in Human Visual Cortex

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haydee G. Garcia-Lazaro ◽  
Mandy V. Bartsch ◽  
Carsten N. Boehler ◽  
Ruth M. Krebs ◽  
Sarah E. Donohue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Target Color ◽  
Selective Area ◽  
Early Visual Cortex ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Irrelevant Color ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Attention Demands

Objects that promise rewards are prioritized for visual selection. The way this prioritization shapes sensory processing in visual cortex, however, is debated. It has been suggested that rewards motivate stronger attentional focusing, resulting in a modulation of sensory selection in early visual cortex. An open question is whether those reward-driven modulations would be independent of similar modulations indexing the selection of attended features that are not associated with reward. Here, we use magnetoencephalography in human observers to investigate whether the modulations indexing global color-based selection in visual cortex are separable for target- and (monetary) reward-defining colors. To assess the underlying global color-based activity modulation, we compare the event-related magnetic field response elicited by a color probe in the unattended hemifield drawn either in the target color, the reward color, both colors, or a neutral task-irrelevant color. To test whether target and reward relevance trigger separable modulations, we manipulate attention demands on target selection while keeping reward-defining experimental parameters constant. Replicating previous observations, we find that reward and target relevance produce almost indistinguishable gain modulations in ventral extratriate cortex contralateral to the unattended color probe. Importantly, increasing attention demands on target discrimination increases the response to the target-defining color, whereas the response to the rewarded color remains largely unchanged. These observations indicate that, although task relevance and reward influence the very same feature-selective area in extrastriate visual cortex, the associated modulations are largely independent.

scholarly journals Task-irrelevant visual motion and flicker attenuate the attentional blink

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Arend ◽  
Stephen Johnston ◽  
Kimron Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Task Irrelevant

scholarly journals Performance Dip in Motor Response Induced by Task-Irrelevant Weaker Coherent Visual Motion Signals

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 1887-1893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Yotsumoto ◽  
A. R. Seitz ◽  
S. Shimojo ◽  
M. Sakagami ◽  
T. Watanabe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Response ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Task Irrelevant

scholarly journals Attention Capture by Angry Faces Depends on the Distribution of Attention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Joshua James Foster
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Load ◽  
Detection System ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Attention Capture ◽  
Threat Detection ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Attention Selection ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Visual Properties ◽  
Threat Stimuli

<p>The threat-capture hypothesis posits a threat-detection system that automatically directs visual attention to threat-related stimuli (e.g., angry facial expressions) in the environment. Importantly, this system is theorised to operate preattentively, processing all input across the visual field in parallel, prior to the operation of selective attention. The threat-capture hypothesis generates two predictions. First, because the threat-detection system directs attention to threat automatically, threat stimuli should capture attention when they are task-irrelevant and the observer has no intention to attend to them. Second, because the threat-detection system operates preattentively, threat stimuli should capture attention even when it is engaged elsewhere. This thesis tested these predictions using behavioural measures of attention capture in conjunction with the N2pc, an event-related potential (ERP) index of attention selection. Experiment 1 tested the first prediction of the threat-capture hypothesis – that threat stimuli capture attention when they are task-irrelevant. Participants performed a dot-probe task in which pairs of face cues – one angry and one neutral – preceded a lateral target. On some trials, the faces were Fourier phase-scrambled to control for low-level visual properties. Consistent with the threat-capture hypothesis, an N2pc was observed for angry faces, suggesting they captured attention despite being completely task-irrelevant. Interestingly, this effect remained when faces were Fourier phase-scrambled, suggesting it is low-level visual properties that drive attention capture by angry faces. Experiments 2A and 2B tested the second prediction of the threat capture hypothesis – that threat stimuli capture attention when it is engaged elsewhere. Participants performed a primary task in which they searched a column of letters at fixation for a target letter. The perceptual load of this task was manipulated to ensure that attentional resources were consumed by this task. Thus there were high and low perceptual load conditions in these experiments. Task-irrelevant angry faces interfered with task performance when the perceptual load of the task was high but not when it was low (Experiment 2A). Similarly, angry faces elicited an N2pc, indicating that they captured attention, but only when perceptual load was high and when faces were phase-scrambled (Experiment 2B). These experiments further suggest that low-level visual factors are important in attention capture by angry faces. These results appear to be inconsistent with the threat-capture hypothesis, and suggest that angry faces do not necessarily capture attention when it is engaged elsewhere.</p>

scholarly journals Global Effects of Feature-based Attention Depend on Surprise

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cooper A. Smout ◽  
Marta I. Garrido ◽  
Jason B. Mattingley
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Information ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Task Irrelevant

AbstractRecent studies have shown that prediction and attention can interact under various circumstances, suggesting that the two processes are based on interdependent neural mechanisms. In the visual modality, attention can be deployed to the location of a task-relevant stimulus (‘spatial attention’) or to a specific feature of the stimulus, such as colour or shape, irrespective of its location (‘feature-based attention’). Here we asked whether predictive processes are influenced by feature-based attention outside the current spatial focus of attention. Across two experiments, we recorded neural activity with electroencephalography (EEG) as human observers performed a feature-based attention task at fixation and ignored a stream of peripheral stimuli with predictable or surprising features. Central targets were defined by a single feature (colour or orientation) and differed in salience across the two experiments. Task-irrelevant peripheral patterns usually comprised one particular conjunction of features (standards), but occasionally deviated in one or both features (deviants). Consistent with previous studies, we found reliable effects of feature-based attention and prediction on neural responses to task-irrelevant patterns in both experiments. Crucially, we observed an interaction between prediction and feature-based attention in both experiments: the neural effect of feature-based attention was larger for surprising patterns than it was for predicted patterns. These findings suggest that global effects of feature-based attention depend on surprise, and are consistent with the idea that attention optimises the precision of predictions by modulating the gain of prediction errors.Significance StatementTwo principal mechanisms facilitate the efficient processing of sensory information: prediction uses prior information to guide the interpretation of sensory events, whereas attention biases the processing of these events according to their behavioural relevance. A recent theory proposes to reconcile attention and prediction under a unifying framework, casting attention as a ‘precision optimisation’ mechanism that enhances the gain of prediction errors. Crucially, this theory suggests that attention and prediction interact to modulate neural responses, but this hypothesis remains to be tested with respect to feature-based attention mechanisms outside the spatial focus of attention. Here we show that global effects of feature-based attention are enhanced when stimuli possess surprising features, suggesting that feature-based attention and prediction are interdependent neural mechanisms.

scholarly journals Difference in perceptual and oculomotor responses revealed by apparent motion stimuli presented with an interstimulus interval

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (9) ◽  
pp. 3219-3228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shizuka Nohara ◽  
Kenji Kawano ◽  
Kenichiro Miura
Keyword(s):  
Feature Tracking ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Level Energy ◽  
Direction Discrimination ◽  
Relative Contrast ◽  
Oculomotor Responses ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
High Level ◽  
High Level Feature ◽  
Response Direction

To understand the mechanisms underlying visual motion analyses for perceptual and oculomotor responses and their similarities/differences, we analyzed eye movement responses to two-frame animations of dual-grating 3 f5 f stimuli while subjects performed direction discrimination tasks. The 3 f5 f stimulus was composed of two sinusoids with a spatial frequency ratio of 3:5 (3 f and 5 f), creating a pattern with fundamental frequency f. When this stimulus was shifted by 1/4 of the wavelength, the two components shifted 1/4 of their wavelengths and had opposite directions: the 5 f forward and the 3 f backward. By presenting the 3 f5 f stimulus with various interstimulus intervals (ISIs), two visual-motion-analysis mechanisms, low-level energy-based and high-level feature-based, could be effectively distinguished. This is because response direction depends on the relative contrast between the components when the energy-based mechanism operates, but not when the feature-based mechanism works. We found that when the 3 f5 f stimuli were presented with shorter ISIs (<100 ms), and 3 f component had higher contrast, both perceptual and ocular responses were in the direction of the pattern shift, whereas the responses were reversed when the 5 f had higher contrast, suggesting operation of the energy-based mechanism. On the other hand, the ocular responses were almost negligible with longer ISIs (>100 ms), whereas perceived directions were biased toward the direction of pattern shift. These results suggest that the energy-based mechanism is dominant in oculomotor responses throughout ISIs; however, there is a transition from energy-based to feature-tracking mechanisms when we perceive visual motion.

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