Cited by 266Visual perception and processing mechanismsVisual Attention and Saliency DetectionNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Quantitative Analysis of Attention and Detection Signals During Visual Search

Shulman, Gordon L., McAvoy, Mark P., Cowan, Melanie C., Astafiev, Serguei V., Tansy, Aaron P., d'Avossa, Giovanni, Corbetta, Maurizio·2003·Journal of Neurophysiology

Abstract

Prior work has distinguished regions in the intraparietal sulcus (IPs) and frontal eye field (FEF) involved in the voluntary control of attention, from more ventral regions in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) involved in target detection. The present results show that when subjects search for and detect a visual target stimulus among nontargets, these regions show sensory-, search-, and detection-related signals that both confirm and refine these functional distinctions. The different signals were isolated by an additive model that accounted for a large fraction of BOLD (blood oxygenation level-dependent) signal modulation over the brain. Both IPs and FEF were activated during search through nontargets, consistent with a role in maintaining attention-related signals during search. However, unlike FEF, IPs also showed stimulus-related activations, and may combine signals related to sensory and task-dependent components of salience. Although IPs-FEF showed search-related activations, the TPJ was deactivated during search. TPJ activations were confined to detection-related signals. These results provide a much stronger dissociation between the TPJ and IPs-FEF than previous work, while indicating functional differences between frontal and parietal regions that are often coactivated in studies of attention. Finally, continuous flow models of information processing predict that during search, signals from missed targets should be fed from sensory to associative regions rather than being gated by the decision criterion. Correspondingly, missed targets significantly activated parietal (e.g., right TPJ) and frontal (e.g., anterior insula, anterior cingulate) regions, although with a smaller magnitude than detected targets. Surprisingly, many cortical regions showed equivalent signals from detected targets and the completion of target-absent trials, reflecting a widespread signal unrelated to motor execution.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1152/jn.00343.2003

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  • The dorsal attention system is involved in voluntary (top-down) orienting and shows activity increases after presentation of cues indicating where, when, or to what subjects should direct their attention.

    “It is involved in voluntary (top-down) orienting and shows activity increases after presentation of cues indicating where, when, or to what subjects should direct their attention (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12).”
  • Each core attention region contains multiple functional subcomponents.

    “Although we refer to the core regions of these systems as if they were homogeneous elements (e.g., IPS or FEF), each contains multiple functional subcomponents (5-7, 18, 19).”
  • The ventral attention system reacts more strongly to task-relevant than irrelevant distracters and exhibits activity decreases when subjects search for a difficult target.

    “Correspondingly, the ventral system reacts more strongly to task-relevant than irrelevant distracters (20) and exhibits activity decreases when subjects search for a difficult target (6).”
  • Both SMA/pre-SMA and MT+ commonly show activity increases along with IPS and FEF in response to an attentional cue and during working memory, visual search, and target detection.

    “Both SMA͞pre-SMA and MTϩ commonly show activity increases along with IPS and FEF in response to an attentional cue and during working memory (46), visual search (6), and target detection.”

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Authors
Shulman, G. L., McAvoy, M. P., Cowan, M. C., Astafiev, S. V., Tansy, A. P., d'Avossa, G., & Corbetta, M.
Affiliations
Washington University in St. Louis (US)
Venue
Journal of Neurophysiology
Published
2003-11
Volume
90
Issue
5
Pages
3384-3397
ISSN
  • 0022-3077 (ISSN-L)
  • 1522-1598
OpenAlex
W2012378897
Cited by
266
References
77
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 18
FWCI
3.26
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Journal of Neurophysiology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (5r01ey012148-02)
  • National Eye Institute (EY-12148)
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
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
visual search, target detection, intraparietal sulcus, frontal eye field, temporoparietal junction, additive models, salience, continuous flow model, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex
MeSH terms
Attention, Evaluation Studies as Topic, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Motion Perception, Parietal Lobe, Photic Stimulation, Visual Perception

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