Attention Improves Object Representation in Visual Cortical Field Potentials Export

@article{Rotermund_2009_attention, abstract = {Selective attention improves perception and modulates neuronal responses, but how attention-dependent changes of cortical activity improve the processing of attended objects is an open question. Changes in total signal strength or enhancements in signal-to-noise ratio have been proposed as putative mechanisms. However, it is still not clear whether, and to what extent, these processes contribute to the large perceptual improvements. We studied the ability to discriminate states of activity in visual cortex evoked by differently shaped objects depending on selective attention in monkeys. We found that gamma-band activity from V4 and V1 contains a high amount of information about stimulus shape, which increases for V4 recordings considerably with attention in successful trials, but not in case of behavioral errors. This effect resulted from enhanced differences between the stimulus-specific distributions of power spectral amplitudes. It could be explained neither by enhancements of signal-to-noise ratios, nor by changes in total signal power. Instead our results indicate that attention causes underlying cortical network states to become more distinct for different stimuli, providing a new neurophysiological explanation for improvements of behavioral performance by attention. The absence of the enhancement in discriminability in trials with behavioral errors demonstrates the relevance of this novel neural mechanism for perception. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009}, author = {Rotermund, David and Taylor, Katja and Ernst, Udo A. and Kreiter, Andreas K. and Pawelzik, Klaus R.}, citeulike-article-id = {5428393}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/32/10120.abstract}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/32/10120.full.pdf}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/32/10120}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19675246}, citeulike-linkout-5 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19675246}, day = {12}, doi = {10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009}, journal = {J. Neurosci.}, keywords = {attention, coding, decoding, monkey, svm, v1, v4, visual}, month = {August}, number = {32}, pages = {10120--10130}, pdf = {rotermund\_09\_attention.pdf}, posted-at = {2009-08-19 09:57:11}, priority = {2}, title = {Attention Improves Object Representation in Visual Cortical Field Potentials}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009}, volume = {29}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - Rotermund_2009_attention L3 - citeulike-article-id:5428393 N2 - Selective attention improves perception and modulates neuronal responses, but how attention-dependent changes of cortical activity improve the processing of attended objects is an open question. Changes in total signal strength or enhancements in signal-to-noise ratio have been proposed as putative mechanisms. However, it is still not clear whether, and to what extent, these processes contribute to the large perceptual improvements. We studied the ability to discriminate states of activity in visual cortex evoked by differently shaped objects depending on selective attention in monkeys. We found that gamma-band activity from V4 and V1 contains a high amount of information about stimulus shape, which increases for V4 recordings considerably with attention in successful trials, but not in case of behavioral errors. This effect resulted from enhanced differences between the stimulus-specific distributions of power spectral amplitudes. It could be explained neither by enhancements of signal-to-noise ratios, nor by changes in total signal power. Instead our results indicate that attention causes underlying cortical network states to become more distinct for different stimuli, providing a new neurophysiological explanation for improvements of behavioral performance by attention. The absence of the enhancement in discriminability in trials with behavioral errors demonstrates the relevance of this novel neural mechanism for perception. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009 IS - 32 JF - J. Neurosci. EP - 10130 TI - Attention Improves Object Representation in Visual Cortical Field Potentials VL - 29 SP - 10120 KW - attention KW - coding KW - decoding KW - monkey KW - svm KW - v1 KW - v4 KW - visual AU - Rotermund, David AU - Taylor, Katja AU - Ernst, Udo AU - Kreiter, Andreas AU - Pawelzik, Klaus PY - 2009/August/12/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5508-08.2009 ER -