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Object-based attention in the primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey

Nature volume 395, pages 376–381 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Typical natural visual scenes contain many objects, which need to be segregated from each other and from the background. Present theories subdivide the processes responsible for this segregation into a pre-attentive and attentive system1,2. The pre-attentive system segregates image regions that ‘pop out’ rapidly and in parallel across the visual field. In the primary visual cortex, responses to pre-attentively selected image regions are enhanced3,4,5. When objects do not segregate automatically from the rest of the image, the time-consuming attentive system is recruited. Here we investigate whether attentive selection is also associated with a modulation of firing rates in area V1 of the brainin monkeys trained to perform a curve-tracing task6,7. Neuronal responses to the various segments of a target curve were simultaneously enhanced relative to responses evoked by a distractor curve, even if the two curves crossed each other. This indicates that object-based attention is associated with a response enhancement at the earliest level of the visual cortical processing hierarchy.

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Figure 1: Response enhancement in area V1 during curve tracing.
Figure 2: Rate enhancement is not caused by differences in fixation behaviour between stimulus conditions.
Figure 3: Simultaneous enhancement of responses to various segments of a single curve.
Figure 4: Response enhancement to stimuli in which the target and distractor curve could intersect each other.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. C. de Feiter and K. Brandsma for technical assistance. The research of P.R.R. and V.A.F.L. was funded by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Visual System Analysis, Graduate School Neurosciences Amsterdam, Laboratory of Medical Physics, and the Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute (KNAW), Academic Medical Center (UvA), PO Box 12141, 1100 AC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Pieter R. Roelfsema, Victor A. F. Lamme & Henk Spekreijse

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  1. Pieter R. Roelfsema
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  2. Victor A. F. Lamme
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Correspondence to Pieter R. Roelfsema.

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Roelfsema, P., Lamme, V. & Spekreijse, H. Object-based attention in the primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey. Nature 395, 376–381 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/26475

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