scholarly journals Dynamic Interplay between Reward and Voluntary Attention Determines Stimulus Processing in Visual Cortex

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Antonio Schettino ◽  
Ernst H. W. Koster ◽  
Søren K. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Motion Detection ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Voluntary Attention ◽  
Stimulus Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Abstract Reward enhances stimulus processing in the visual cortex, but the mechanisms through which this effect occurs remain unclear. Reward prospect can both increase the deployment of voluntary attention and increase the salience of previously neutral stimuli. In this study, we orthogonally manipulated reward and voluntary attention while human participants performed a global motion detection task. We recorded steady-state visual evoked potentials to simultaneously measure the processing of attended and unattended stimuli linked to different reward probabilities, as they compete for attentional resources. The processing of the high rewarded feature was enhanced independently of voluntary attention, but this gain diminished once rewards were no longer available. Neither the voluntary attention nor the salience account alone can fully explain these results. Instead, we propose how these two accounts can be integrated to allow for the flexible balance between reward-driven increase in salience and voluntary attention.

scholarly journals Dynamic interplay between reward and voluntary attention determines stimulus processing in visual cortex

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Antonio Schettino ◽  
Ernst H. W. Koster ◽  
Soren K. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Motion Detection ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Voluntary Attention ◽  
Stimulus Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Reward enhances stimulus processing in the visual cortex, but the mechanisms through which this effect occurs remain unclear. Reward prospect can both increase the deployment of voluntary attention and increase the salience of previously neutral stimuli. In this study we orthogonally manipulated reward and voluntary attention while human participants performed a global motion detection task. We recorded steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to simultaneously measure the processing of attended and unattended stimuli linked to different reward probabilities, as they compete for attentional resources. The processing of the high rewarded feature was enhanced independently of voluntary attention, but this gain diminished once rewards were no longer available. Neither the voluntary attention nor the salience account alone can fully explain these results. Instead, we propose how these two accounts can be integrated to allow for the flexible balance between reward-driven increase in salience and voluntary attention.

Global motion detection is impaired in cats deprived early of pattern vision

2002 ◽  
Vol 134 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalina Burnat ◽  
Erik Vandenbussche ◽  
Bogusław Żernicki
Keyword(s):  
Motion Detection ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Pattern Vision

scholarly journals Bottom-up saliency and top-down learning in the primary visual cortex of monkeys

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (41) ◽  
pp. 10499-10504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin Yan ◽  
Li Zhaoping ◽  
Wu Li
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Late Response ◽  
Late Component ◽  
Neuronal Responses ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Response Component ◽  
Orientation Contrast

Early sensory cortex is better known for representing sensory inputs but less for the effect of its responses on behavior. Here we explore the behavioral correlates of neuronal responses in primary visual cortex (V1) in a task to detect a uniquely oriented bar—the orientation singleton—in a background of uniformly oriented bars. This singleton is salient or inconspicuous when the orientation contrast between the singleton and background bars is sufficiently large or small, respectively. Using implanted microelectrodes, we measured V1 activities while monkeys were trained to quickly saccade to the singleton. A neuron’s responses to the singleton within its receptive field had an early and a late component, both increased with the orientation contrast. The early component started from the outset of neuronal responses; it remained unchanged before and after training on the singleton detection. The late component started ∼40 ms after the early one; it emerged and evolved with practicing the detection task. Training increased the behavioral accuracy and speed of singleton detection and increased the amount of information in the late response component about a singleton’s presence or absence. Furthermore, for a given singleton, faster detection performance was associated with higher V1 responses; training increased this behavioral–neural correlate in the early V1 responses but decreased it in the late V1 responses. Therefore, V1’s early responses are directly linked with behavior and represent the bottom-up saliency signals. Learning strengthens this link, likely serving as the basis for making the detection task more reflexive and less top-down driven.

scholarly journals Rats spontaneously perceive global motion direction of drifting plaids

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulio Matteucci ◽  
Benedetta Zattera ◽  
Rosilari Bellacosa Marotti ◽  
Davide Zoccolan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Motion Direction ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
Visual Priming ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
High Level ◽  
Mouse Visual Cortex ◽  
Motion Detectors

AbstractComputing global motion direction of extended visual objects is a hallmark of primate high-level vision. Although neurons selective for global motion have also been found in mouse visual cortex, it remains unknown whether rodents can combine multiple motion signals into global, integrated percepts. To address this question, we trained two groups of rats to discriminate either gratings (G group) or plaids (i.e., superpositions of gratings with different orientations; P group) drifting horizontally along opposite directions. After the animals learned the task, we applied a visual priming paradigm, where presentation of the target stimulus was preceded by the brief presentation of either a grating or a plaid. The extent to which rat responses to the targets were biased by such prime stimuli provided a measure of the spontaneous, perceived similarity between primes and targets. We found that gratings and plaids, when uses as primes, were equally effective at biasing the perception of plaid direction for the rats of the P group. Conversely, for G group, only the gratings acted as effective prime stimuli, while the plaids failed to alter the perception of grating direction. To interpret these observations, we simulated a decision neuron reading out the representations of gratings and plaids, as conveyed by populations of either component or pattern cells (i.e., local or global motion detectors). We concluded that the findings for the P group are highly consistent with the existence of a population of pattern cells, playing a functional role similar to that demonstrated in primates. We also explored different scenarios that could explain the failure of the plaid stimuli to elicit a sizable priming magnitude for the G group. These simulations yielded testable predictions about the properties of motion representations in rodent visual cortex at the single-cell and circuitry level, thus paving the way to future neurophysiology experiments.

scholarly journals Global motion from form in the human visual cortex

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 1063-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Kourtzi ◽  
A. Vatakis ◽  
B. Krekelberg
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Human Visual Cortex

scholarly journals Steady-state visually evoked potentials reveal partial size constancy in early visual cortex

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Chen ◽  
Meaghan McManus ◽  
Matteo Valsecchi ◽  
Laurence R. Harris ◽  
Karl R. Gegenfurtner
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Evoked Potentials ◽  
Size Constancy ◽  
Visually Evoked Potentials ◽  
Early Visual Cortex

scholarly journals Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials Elicited from Early Visual Cortex Reflect Both Perceptual Color Space and Cone-Opponent Mechanisms

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sae Kaneko ◽  
Ichiro Kuriki ◽  
Søren K Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Evoked Potentials ◽  
Visual Evoked Potentials ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Color Contrast ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Opponent Color ◽  
Early Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Evoked

Abstract Colors are represented in the cone-opponent signals, L-M versus S cones, at least up to the level of inputs to the primary visual cortex. We explored the hue selective responses in early cortical visual areas through recordings of steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs), elicited by a flickering checkerboard whose color smoothly swept around the hue circle defined in a cone-opponent color space. If cone opponency dominates hue representation in the source of SSVEP signals, SSVEP amplitudes as a function of hue should form a profile that is line-symmetric along the cardinal axes of the cone-opponent color space. Observed SSVEP responses were clearly chromatic ones with increased SSVEP amplitudes and reduced response latencies for higher contrast conditions. The overall elliptic amplitude profile was significantly tilted away from the cardinal axes to have the highest amplitudes in the “lime-magenta” direction, indicating that the hue representation in question is not dominated by cone-opponency. The observed SSVEP amplitude hue profile was better described as a summation of a perceptual response and cone-opponent responses with a larger weight to the former. These results indicate that hue representations in the early visual cortex, measured by the SSVEP technique, are possibly related to perceptual color contrast.

scholarly journals Mobile EEG identifies the re-allocation of attention during real-world activity

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ladouce ◽  
David I. Donaldson ◽  
Paul A. Dudchenko ◽  
Magdalena Ietswaart
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Processing Demands ◽  
Neural Marker ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Human Participants

Abstract The distribution of attention between competing processing demands can have dramatic real-world consequences, however little is known about how limited attentional resources are distributed during real-world behaviour. Here we employ mobile EEG to characterise the allocation of attention across multiple sensory-cognitive processing demands during naturalistic movement. We used a neural marker of attention, the Event-Related Potential (ERP) P300 effect, to show that attention to targets is reduced when human participants walk compared to when they stand still. In a second experiment, we show that this reduction in attention is not caused by the act of walking per se. A third experiment identified the independent processing demands driving reduced attention to target stimuli during motion. ERP data reveals that the reduction in attention seen during walking reflects the linear and additive sum of the processing demands produced by visual and inertial stimulation. The mobile cognition approach used here shows how limited resources are precisely re-allocated according to the sensory processing demands that occur during real-world behaviour.

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