Nature Neuroscience
8, 1197 - 1202 (2005)
Published online: 31 July 2005; | doi:10.1038/nn1512
Neural basis of auditory-induced shifts in visual time-order perceptionJohn J McDonald1, Wolfgang A Teder-Sälejärvi2, Francesco Di Russo3, 4
& Steven A Hillyard21
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada. 2
Department of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California, 92093-0608, USA. 3
Department of Education in Sport and Human Movement, University for Human Movement (IUSM), Piazza Lauro De Bosis, 15, 00194, Rome, Italy. 4
Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS, Via Ardeatina, 306, 00179, Rome, Italy.
Correspondence should be addressed to John J McDonald jmcd@sfu.ca Attended objects are perceived to occur before unattended objects even when the two objects are presented simultaneously. This finding has led to the widespread view that attention modulates the speed of neural transmission in the various perceptual pathways. We recorded event-related potentials during a time-order judgment task to determine whether a reflexive shift of attention to a sudden sound modulates the speed of sensory processing in the human visual system. Attentional cueing influenced the perceived order of lateralized visual events but not the timing of event-related potentials in visual cortex. Attentional cueing did, however, enhance the amplitude of neural activity in visual cortex, which shows that attention-induced shifts in visual time-order perception can arise from modulations of signal strength rather than processing speed in the early visual-cortical pathways.
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
|
