scholarly journals Trial History Effects in the Ventral Attentional Network

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 2789-2797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige E. Scalf ◽  
JeeWon Ahn ◽  
Diane M. Beck ◽  
Alejandro Lleras
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Attentional Biases ◽  
Top Down ◽  
History Effects ◽  
Attentional Network ◽  
Trial History ◽  
Stimulus Environment

The ventral attentional network (VAN) is thought to drive “stimulus driven attention” [e.g., Asplund, C. L., Todd, J. J., Snyder, A. P., & Marois, R. A central role for the lateral prefrontal cortex in goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention. Nature Neuroscience, 13, 507–512, 2010; Shulman, G. L., McAvoy, M. P., Cowan, M. C., Astafiev, S. V., Tansy, A. P., D' Avossa, G., et al. Quantitative analysis of attention and detection signals during visual search. Journal of Neurophysiology, 90, 3384–3397, 2003]; in other words, it instantiates within the current stimulus environment the top–down attentional biases maintained by the dorsal attention network [e.g., Kincade, J. M., Abrams, R. A., Astafiev, S. V., Shulman, G. L., & Corbetta, M. An event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study of voluntary and stimulus-driven orienting of attention. The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 25, 4593–4604, 2005]. Previous work has shown that the dorsal attentional network is sensitive to trial history, such that it is challenged by changes in task goals and facilitated by repetition thereof [e.g., Kristjánsson, A., Vuilleumier, P., Schwartz, S., Macaluso, E., & Driver, J. Neural basis for priming of pop-out during visual search revealed with fMRI. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 1612–1624, 2007]. Here, we investigate whether the VAN also preserves information across trials such that it is challenged when previously rejected stimuli become task relevant. We used fMRI to investigate the sensitivity of the ventral attentional system to prior history effects as measured by the distractor preview effect. This behavioral phenomenon reflects a bias against stimuli that have historically not supported task performance. We found regions traditionally considered to be part of the VAN (right middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus) [Shulman, G. L., McAvoy, M. P., Cowan, M. C., Astafiev, S. V., Tansy, A. P., D' Avossa, G., et al. Quantitative analysis of attention and detection signals during visual search. Journal of Neurophysiology, 90, 3384–3397, 2003] to be more active when task-relevant stimuli had not supported task performance in a previous trial than when they had. Investigations of the ventral visual system suggest that this effect is more reliably driven by trial history preserved within the VAN than that preserved within the visual system per se. We conclude that VAN maintains its interactions with top–down stimulus biases and bottom–up stimulation across time, allowing previous experience with the stimulus environment to influence attentional biases under current circumstances.

Voluntary Control of Task Selection Does Not Eliminate the Impact of Selection History on Attention

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (11) ◽  
pp. 2159-2177
Author(s):  
Dion T. Henare ◽  
Hanna Kadel ◽  
Anna Schubö
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Task Selection ◽  
Color Selection ◽  
Selection History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

The human visual system can only process a fraction of the information present in a typical visual scene, and selection is historically framed as the outcome of bottom–up and top–down control processes. In this study, we evaluated how a third factor, an individual's selection history, interacts with top–down control mechanisms during visual search. Participants in our task were assigned to one of two groups in which they developed a history of either shape or color selection in one task, while searching for a shape singleton in a second task. A voluntary task selection procedure allowed participants to choose which task they would perform on each trial, thereby maximizing their top–down preparation. We recorded EEG throughout and extracted lateralized ERP components that index target selection (NT) and distractor suppression (PD). Our results showed that selection history continued to guide attention during visual search, even when top–down control mechanisms were maximized with voluntary task selection. For participants with a history of color selection, the NT component elicited by a shape target was attenuated when accompanied by a color distractor, and the distractor itself elicited a larger PD component. In addition, task-switching results revealed that participants in the color group had larger, asymmetric switch costs implying increased competition between task sets. Our results support the notion that selection history is a significant factor in attention guidance, orienting the visual system reflexively to objects that contradict an individual's current goals—even when these goals are intrinsically selected and prepared ahead of time.

scholarly journals Why Are Acquired Search-Guiding Context Memories Resistant to Updating?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Geyer ◽  
Werner Seitz ◽  
Artyom Zinchenko ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Markus Conci
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Target Stimulus ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Context Learning ◽  
Object Properties ◽  
Critical Object ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Predictive Mechanisms

Looking for goal-relevant objects in our various environments is one of the most ubiquitous tasks the human visual system has to accomplish (Wolfe, 1998). Visual search is guided by a number of separable selective-attention mechanisms that can be categorized as bottom-up driven – guidance by salient physical properties of the current stimuli – or top-down controlled – guidance by observers' “online” knowledge of search-critical object properties (e.g., Liesefeld and Müller, 2019). In addition, observers' expectations based on past experience also play also a significant role in goal-directed visual selection. Because sensory environments are typically stable, it is beneficial for the visual system to extract and learn the environmental regularities that are predictive of (the location of) the target stimulus. This perspective article is concerned with one of these predictive mechanisms: statistical context learning of consistent spatial patterns of target and distractor items in visual search. We review recent studies on context learning and its adaptability to incorporate consistent changes, with the aim to provide new directions to the study of processes involved in the acquisition of search-guiding context memories and their adaptation to consistent contextual changes – from a three-pronged, psychological, computational, and neurobiological perspective.

scholarly journals Color Can Shorten Breakthrough Times in Continuous Flash Suppression through Increased Salience and Task Relevance

Vision ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Christian Valuch
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Interocular Suppression ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Mediated Effects ◽  
Dominant Eye ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
And Task

Color can enhance the perception of relevant stimuli by increasing their salience and guiding visual search towards stimuli that match a task-relevant color. Using Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), the current study investigated whether color facilitates the discrimination of targets that are difficult to perceive due to interocular suppression. Gabor patterns of two or four cycles per degree (cpd) were shown as targets to the non-dominant eye of human participants. CFS masks were presented at a rate of 10 Hz to the dominant eye, and participants had the task to report the target’s orientation as soon as they could discriminate it. The 2-cpd targets were robustly suppressed and resulted in much longer response times compared to 4-cpd targets. Moreover, only for 2-cpd targets, two color-related effects were evident. First, in trials where targets and CFS masks had different colors, targets were reported faster than in trials where targets and CFS masks had the same color. Second, targets with a known color, either cyan or yellow, were reported earlier than targets whose color was randomly cyan or yellow. The results suggest that the targets’ entry to consciousness may have been speeded by color-mediated effects relating to increased (bottom-up) salience and (top-down) task relevance.

Visual control of orientation behaviour in the fly: Part I. A quantitative analysis

1976 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Reichardt ◽  
Tomaso Poggio
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Suitable Model ◽  
Logical Organization ◽  
Integrative Level ◽  
Processing Properties ◽  
Different Levels

An understanding of sensory information processing in the nervous system will probably require investigations with a variety of ‘model’ systems at different levels of complexity.Our choice of a suitable model system was constrained by two conflicting requirements: on one hand the information processing properties of the system should be rather complex, on the other hand the system should be amenable to a quantitative analysis. In this sense the fly represents a compromise.In these two papers we explore how optical information is processed by the fly's visual system. Our objective is to unravel the logical organization of the fly's visual system and its underlying functional and computational principles. Our approach is at a highly integrative level. There are different levels of analysing and ‘understanding’ complex systems, like a brain or a sophisticated computer.

scholarly journals Visual Search Bottom-Up or Top-Down

10.2741/a503 ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. d169-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Sathian
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up

An action-specific effect on perception that avoids all pitfalls

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica K. Witt ◽  
Mila Sugovic ◽  
Nathan L. Tenhundfeld ◽  
Zachary R. King
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Top Down

AbstractThe visual system is influenced by action. Objects that are easier to reach or catch look closer and slower, respectively. Here, we describe evidence for one action-specific effect, and show that none of the six pitfalls can account for the results. Vision is not an isolate module, as shown by this top-down effect of action on perception.

scholarly journals Why the item will remain the unit of attentional selection in visual search

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Attentional Biases ◽  
Unit Of Selection ◽  
Critical Unit

AbstractHulleman & Olivers (H&O) reject item-based serial models of visual search, and they suggest that items are processed equally and globally during each fixation period. However, neuroscientific studies have shown that attentional biases can emerge in parallel but in a spatially selective item-based fashion. Even within a parallel architecture for visual search, the item remains the critical unit of selection.

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