Influence and limitations of popout in the selection of salient visual stimuli by area V4 neurons
Open accessAbstract
The neural mechanism of bottom-up attention and its relationship to top-down attention are poorly understood. Visual stimuli that differ from others in their component features are salient and tend to draw attention in a bottom-up manner. “Popout” stimuli differ uniformly from surrounding items and are more easily detected than stimuli composed of a conjunction of surrounding features. We compared the responses of single area V4 neurons to popout and conjunction stimuli appearing within the classical receptive field (CRF) and found that their responses are modulated by popout. This selectivity was more robust when larger numbers of surrounding items and multiple features were included in the display, and it was absent when only a few items were presented immediately outside the CRF. In addition, the popout modulation of V4 activity was eliminated when top-down attention was directed to locations outside of the CRFs during saccade preparation, indicating that the salience of popout stimuli is not sufficient to drive selection by V4 neurons. These results demonstrate that neurons in feature-selective cortex are influenced by bottom-up attention, but that this influence is limited by top-down attention.
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Salient stimuli preferentially activate neurons in the visual system (V1, V4).
“Although it is clear that salient stimuli preferentially activate neurons in the visual system (e.g. V1: [32]; V4: [33]), the basis of those effects remains unclear.”
From Linking ADHD to the Neural Circuitry of Attention (2017) · cites this paper as [33]
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References 81 · Cited by 85
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Miller EK Buschman TJ 2007 Response to comment on “Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices” Science 318 44 17395832
- Authors
- Burrows, B. E., & Moore, T.
- Affiliations
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- ORCID
- Moore, Tirin
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2009-12-02
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 48
- Pages
- 15169-15177
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC2824599
- OpenAlex
- W2092015040
- Cited by
- 85
- References
- 81
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 3.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Pew Charitable Trusts
- McKnight Foundation
- National Institutes of Health (EY014924)
- National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH081500)
- National Eye Institute (EY014924, R01EY014924, R56EY014924)
- 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
- pop-out, bottom-up attention, top-down attention, area V4, classical receptive field, saccade preparation, single neuron responses
- MeSH terms
- Action Potentials, Analysis of Variance, Animals, Attention, Brain Mapping, Discrimination, Psychological, Fixation, Ocular, Macaca mulatta, Male, Neurons, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Time Factors, Visual Cortex, Visual Fields
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