New paper by Andersen et al.

New paper by Andersen et al.

"Global facilitation of attended features is obligatory and restricts divided attention." Published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Dr Andersen's recent research used EEG recordings to examine divided attention  

Abstract

In many common situations such as driving an automobile it is advantageous to attend concurrently to events at different locations (e.g., the car in front, the pedestrian to the side). While spatial attention can be divided effectively between separate locations, studies investigating attention to nonspatial features have often reported a “global effect”, whereby items having the attended feature may be preferentially processed throughout the entire visual field. These findings suggest that spatial and feature-based attention may at times act in direct opposition: spatially divided foci of attention cannot be truly independent if feature attention is spatially global and thereby affects all foci equally.

In two experiments, human observers attended concurrently to one of two overlapping fields of dots of different colors presented in both the left and right visual fields. When the same color or two different colors were attended on the two sides, deviant targets were detected accurately, and visual-cortical potentials elicited by attended dots were enhanced. However, when the attended color on one side matched the ignored color on the opposite side, attentional modulation of cortical potentials was abolished. This loss of feature selectivity could be attributed to enhanced processing of unattended items that shared the color of the attended items in the opposite field. Thus, while it is possible to attend to two different colors at the same time, this ability is fundamentally constrained by spatially global feature enhancement in early visual-cortical areas, which is obligatory and persists even when it explicitly conflicts with task demands.

 

Reference

Andersen, S. K., Hillyard, S. A. & Müller, M. M. (2013). Global facilitation of attended features Is obligatory and restricts divided attention. Journal of Neuroscience, 33 (46), 18200-18207.

Read full article online

Search News

Browse by Month

2024

  1. Jan
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2024
  3. Mar
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2024
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2024
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2024
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2024
  8. Aug There are no items to show for August 2024
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2024
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2024
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2024
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2024

2023

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2023
  2. Feb
  3. Mar There are no items to show for March 2023
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2023
  8. Aug
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2023
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2023
  11. Nov
  12. Dec

2022

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2022
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2022
  3. Mar There are no items to show for March 2022
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2022
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2022
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2022
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2022
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2022
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2022

2020

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2020
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2020
  3. Mar
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2020
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2020
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2020
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2020
  8. Aug There are no items to show for August 2020
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2020
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2020
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2020
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2020

2019

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2019
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2019
  3. Mar There are no items to show for March 2019
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2019
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2019
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2019
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2019
  10. Oct
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2019
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2019

2018

  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2018
  6. Jun
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2018
  8. Aug There are no items to show for August 2018
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2018
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2018
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2018
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2018

2017

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2017
  2. Feb
  3. Mar There are no items to show for March 2017
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2017
  5. May There are no items to show for May 2017
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2017
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2017
  8. Aug There are no items to show for August 2017
  9. Sep
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2017
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2017
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2017

2016

  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2016
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2016

2013

  1. Jan
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2013
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2013
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec

2012

  1. Jan There are no items to show for January 2012
  2. Feb There are no items to show for February 2012
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun There are no items to show for June 2012
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2012
  8. Aug
  9. Sep There are no items to show for September 2012
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2012

2011

  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr There are no items to show for April 2011
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul There are no items to show for July 2011
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct There are no items to show for October 2011
  11. Nov There are no items to show for November 2011
  12. Dec There are no items to show for December 2011