Abstract
Changes in neural responses based on spatial attention have been demonstrated in many areas of visual cortex1,2,3,4, 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.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Moran, J. & Desimone, R. Selective attention gates visual processing in the extrastriate cortex. Science 229, 782–784 (1985).
Motter, B. C. Focal attention produces spatially selective processing in visual cortical areas V1, V2, and V4 in the presence of competing stimuli. J. Neurophysiol. 70, 909–919 (1993).
Treue, S. & Maunsell, J. H. R. Attentional modulation of visual motion processing in cortical areas MT and MST. Nature 382, 539–541 (1996).
Luck, S. J., Chelazzi, L., Hillyard, S. A. & Desimone, R. Neural mechanisms of spatial selective attention in areas V1, V2, and V4 of macaque visual cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 77, 24–42 (1997).
Newsome, W. T., Wurtz, R. H., Dürsteler, M. R. & Mikami, A. Deficits in visual motion processing following ibotenic acid lesions of the middle temporal visual area of the macaque monkey. J. Neurosci. 5, 825–840 (1985).
Newsome, W. T. & Paré, E. B. Aselective impairment of motion perception following lesions of the middle temporal visual area (MT). J. Neurosci. 8, 2201–2211 (1988).
Britten, K. H., Newsome, W. T., Shadlen, M. N., Celebrini, S. & Movshon, J. A. Arelationship between behavioral choice and the visual responses of neurons in macaque MT. Vis. Neurosci. 13, 87–100 (1996).
Snowden, R. J., Treue, S. & Andersen, R. A. The response of neurons in areas V1 and MT of the alert rhesus monkey to moving random dot patterns. Exp. Brain Res. 88, 389–400 (1992).
McAdams, C. J. & Maunsell, J. H. R. Effects of attention on orientation tuning functions of single neurons in macaque cortical area V4. J. Neurosci. 19, 431–441 (1999).
Spitzer, H., Desimone, R. & Moran, J. Increased attention enhances both behavioral and neuronal performance. Science 240, 338–340 (1988).
Lankheet, M. J. M. & Verstraten, F. A. J. Attentional modulation of adaptation to two-component transparent motion. Vision Res. 35, 1401–1412 (1995).
Duncan, J. & Nimmo-Smith, I. Objects and attributes in divided attention: Surface and boundary systems. Percept. Psychophys. 58, 1076–1084 (1996).
Valdes-Sosa, M., Bobes, M. A., Rodriguez, V. & Pinilla, T. Switching attention without shifting the spotlight: Object-based attentional modulation of brain potentials. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 10, 137–151 (1998).
Reynolds, J. H. & Desimone, R. Attention and contrast have similar effects on competitive interactions in macaque area V4. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 23, 302 (1997).
Treue, S. & Martinez, J. C. Attentional modulation of direction-selective responses in MT/MST resembles the effect of reducing contrast of unattended stimuli. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 24, 1249 (1998).
O'Craven, K. M., Rosen, B. R., Kwong, K. K., Treisman, A. & Savoy, R. L. Voluntary attention modulates fMRI activity in human MT-MST. Neuron 18, 591–598 (1997).
Beauchamp, M. S., Cox, R. W. & DeYoe, E. A. Graded effects of spatial and featural attention on human area MT and associated motion processing areas. J. Neurophysiol. 78, 516–520 (1997).
Motter, B. C. Neural correlates of attentive selection for color or luminance in extrastriate area V4. J.Neurosci. 14, 2178–2189 (1994).
Chelazzi, L., Miller, E. K., Duncan, J. & Desimone, R. Aneural basis for visual search in inferior temporal cortex. Nature 363, 345–347 (1993).
Itti, L., Braun, J., Lee, D. K. & Koch, C. Attentional modulation of human pattern discrimination psychophysics reproduced by a quantitative model. Neural Information Processing Systems(in the press).
McAdams, C. J. & Maunsell, J. H. R. Attention enhances neuronal responses without altering orientation selectivity in macaque area V4. Neurosci. Abstr. 22, 1197 (1996).
Martinez, J. & Treue, S. Attention does not sharpen direction-tuning curves in macaque monkey MT/MST neurons. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 24, 649 (1998).
Desimone, R. & Duncan, J. Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 18, 193–222 (1995).
Reynolds, J. H., Chelazzi, L. & Desimone, R. Competitive mechanisms subserve attention in macaque areas V2 and V4. J. Neurosci. 19, 1730–1753 (1999).
Treue, S. & Maunsell, J. H. R. Effects of attention on the processing of motion in macaque visual cortical areas MT and MST. J. Neurosci.submitted.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the MWF-Württemberg. J.C.M. is a fellow of the Graduiertenkolleg Neurobiologie, Tübingen.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Treue, S., Trujillo, J. Feature-based attention influences motion processing gain in macaque visual cortex. Nature 399, 575–579 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/21176
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/21176
This article is cited by
-
Neural evidence for attentional capture by salient distractors
Nature Human Behaviour (2024)
-
Unsupervised approach to decomposing neural tuning variability
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Laminar compartmentalization of attention modulation in area V4 aligns with the demands of visual processing hierarchy in the cortex
Scientific Reports (2023)
-
Neural cognitive signals during spontaneous movements in the macaque
Nature Neuroscience (2023)
-
Expectation violations enhance neuronal encoding of sensory information in mouse primary visual cortex
Nature Communications (2023)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.