Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 106, Issue 52, Pages 22456-22461Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0907573106
Keywords
contrast; cross-modal attention; event-related potentials
Categories
Funding
- National Eye Institute [EY016984]
- National Institute of Mental Health [MH082790]
- Office of Naval Research [N 00014-07-10937]
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
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The question of whether attention makes sensory impressions appear more intense has been a matter of debate for over a century. Recent psychophysical studies have reported that attention increases apparent contrast of visual stimuli, but the issue continues to be debated. We obtained converging neurophysiological evidence from human observers as they judged the relative contrast of visual stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields following a lateralized auditory cue. Cross-modal cueing of attention boosted the apparent contrast of the visual target in association with an enlarged neural response in the contralateral visual cortex that began within 100 ms after target onset. The magnitude of the enhanced neural response was positively correlated with perceptual reports of the cued target being higher in contrast. The results suggest that attention increases the perceived contrast of visual stimuli by boosting early sensory processing in the visual cortex.
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