Feature-Based Attention Increases the Selectivity of Population Responses in Primate Visual Cortex
Open accessAbstract
Background Attending to the spatial location or to nonspatial features of visual stimuli can modulate neuronal responses in primate visual cortex. The modulation by spatial attention changes the gain of sensory neurons and strengthens the representation of attended locations without changing neuronal selectivities such as directionality, i.e., the ratio of responses to preferred and anti-preferred directions of motion. Whether feature-based attention acts in a similar manner is unknown.Results To clarify this issue, we recorded the responses of 135 direction-selective neurons in the middle temporal area (MT) of two macaques to an unattended moving random dot pattern (the distractor) positioned inside a neuron's receptive field while the animals attended to a second moving pattern positioned in the opposite hemifield. Responses to different directions of the distractor were modulated by the same factor (approximately 12%) as long as the attended direction remained unchanged. On the other hand, systematically changing the attended direction from a neuron's preferred to its anti-preferred direction caused a systematic change of the attentional modulation from an enhancement to a suppression, increasing directionality by about 20%.Conclusions The results show that (1) feature-based attention exerts a multiplicative modulation upon neuronal responses and that the strength of this modulation depends on the similarity between the attended feature and the cell's preferred feature, in line with the feature-similarity gain model, and (2) at the level of the neuronal population, feature-based attention increases the selectivity for attended features by increasing the responses of neurons preferring this feature value while decreasing responses of neurons tuned to the opposite feature value.
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This selective modulation of afferents mirrors the gain-control mechanisms invoked for attention.
“This selective modulation of afferents mirrors the gain-control mechanisms invoked for attention; e.g., [58],[59].”
From Hierarchical Models in the Brain (2008) · cites this paper as [59]
In non-human primate visual system, visual spatial attention within the receptive field of a recorded neuron enhances both contrast gain and response gain.
“Attentional modulation of neural gain has been particularly well studied in the non-human primate visual system1,42,43, in which visual spatial attention within the receptive field of a recorded neuron enhances both contrast gain (that is, scaling of that neuron’s stimulus-response relationship along the contrast axis)43 and response gain (that is, multiplicative transformation of responses to all”
From Mechanisms underlying gain modulation in the cortex (2020) · cites this paper as [47]
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- Authors
- Martinez-Trujillo, J. C., & Treue, S.
- Affiliations
- German Primate Center (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Treue, Stefan
- ORCID
- Treue, Stefan
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2004-05
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 744-751
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2120449116
- Cited by
- 697
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 35
- FWCI
- 9.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 3364 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- GRO (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Keywords
- feature-based attention, direction-selective neurons, middle temporal area, attentional modulation, neuronal selectivity, movement direction, random dot motion, macaque, visual cortex, population response
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Attention, Brain Mapping, Macaca, Male, Motion Perception, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Visual Cortex, Visual Fields
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