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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Attention improves performance primarily by reducing interneuronal correlations

Open access
Cohen, Marlene R, Maunsell, John H R·2009·Nature Neuroscience

Abstract

Visual attention can improve behavioral performance by allowing observers to focus on the important information in a complex scene. Attention also typically increases the firing rates of cortical sensory neurons. Rate increases improve the signal-to-noise ratio of individual neurons, and this improvement has been assumed to underlie attention-related improvements in behavior. We recorded dozens of neurons simultaneously in visual area V4 and found that changes in single neurons accounted for only a small fraction of the improvement in the sensitivity of the population. Instead, over 80% of the attentional improvement in the population signal was caused by decreases in the correlations between the trial-to-trial fluctuations in the responses of pairs of neurons. These results suggest that the representation of sensory information in populations of neurons and the way attention affects the sensitivity of the population may only be understood by considering the interactions between neurons.

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Metadata

Authors
Cohen, M. R., & Maunsell, J. H. R.
Venue
Nature Neuroscience
Published
2009-11-15
Volume
12
Issue
12
Pages
1594-1600
ISSN
  • 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-1726
OpenAlex
W2105031232
Cited by
1,152
References
11
FWCI
18.58
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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Cohen, M. R., & Maunsell, J. H. R. (2009). Attention improves performance primarily by reducing interneuronal correlations. Nature Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2439

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