The spatial extent of attentional facilitation and inhibition of return in humans and monkeys
When a salient cue is flashed just before a target, it reduces reaction times to the target presented at the cued location compared to a target in the opposite hemi-field. This is known as attentional facilitation. However, if the cue and target are separated further in time, reaction times to the target in the cued location are increased, a phenomenon known as inhibition of return (IOR). Although these cueing effects are well documented for cued and opposite hemi-field locations, it remains less clear how the cue and target interact in other areas of the visual field over time. Here, we investigate the spatial extent of attentional facilitation and inhibition of return (IOR) in response to an exogenous cue.
We used saccade latencies as a behavioral metric of attentional allocation. Two humans and two monkeys made saccades to visual targets at 136 locations spread across the visual field (9° up/down/left/right) in an 18 deg region centered on a central fixation target. In 80% of the trials, a behaviorally irrelevant cue was flashed at one of 4 oblique locations (7° eccentricity) either 50 or 200 ms before the target. In the remaining 20% of the trials, no cue was presented.
We calculated average saccade latency as a function of distance from the cue at each of the four cue locations relative to uncued saccade latency. When the cue preceded the target by 50ms, we found slightly shorter saccadic reaction times for targets located in the same quadrant as the cue. Interestingly, we also found a strong inhibitory effect (longer latencies) for saccades to targets in all other quadrants, with the strongest effect in the quadrant opposite to the cue. This pattern virtually reversed when the cue preceded the target by 200ms; we found strong inhibition in the cued quadrant and slight facilitation of all other quadrants. These results were similar for both humans and monkeys.
Our findings suggest that the spatial attention does not only affect the location of attentional allocation but rather extends to the entire visual space. The spatial extent of the cue-related saccade latency modulations points toward a center-surround mechanism for both attentional facilitation and IOR. These results could be explained by a neural model combining lateral inhibition with post-synaptic suppression in salience map.
Conference:
Computational and systems
neuroscience 2009, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 26 Feb - 3 Mar, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster Presentations
Citation:
(2009). The spatial extent of attentional facilitation and inhibition of return in humans and monkeys.
Front. Syst. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Computational and systems
neuroscience 2009.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.06.2009.03.004
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Received:
28 Jan 2009;
Published Online:
28 Jan 2009.