Feature-selective attention enhances color signals in early visual areas of the human brain.

Full Abstract

We used an electrophysiological measure of selective stimulus processing (the steady-state visual evoked potential, SSVEP) to investigate feature-specific attention to color cues. Subjects viewed a display consisting of spatially intermingled red and blue dots that continually shifted their positions at random. The red and blue dots flickered at different frequencies and thereby elicited distinguishable SSVEP signals in the visual cortex. Paying attention selectively to either the red or blue dot population produced an enhanced amplitude of its frequency-tagged SSVEP, which was localized by source modeling to early levels of the visual cortex. A control experiment showed that this selection was based on color rather than flicker frequency cues. This signal amplification of attended color items provides an empirical basis for the rapid identification of feature conjunctions during visual search, as proposed by "guided search" models.

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Author information

Author/s: Müller, M M (MM); Andersen, S (S); Trujillo, N J (NJ); Valdés-Sosa, P (P); Malinowski, P (P); Hillyard, S A (SA);

Affiliation: Institut für Psychologie I, Universität Leipzig, Seeburgstrasse 14-20, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. m.mueller(-atsign-)rz.uni-leipzig.de

Grants: EY016984-32 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Sep; vol 103 (issue 38) : pp 14250-4

Dates: Created 2006/09/20; Completed 2006/12/14; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 16956975, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attention - physiology
Behavior - physiology
Brain Mapping
Color
Color Perception - physiology

Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Female
Form Perception - physiology
Humans
Photic Stimulation
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