Neuronal and behavioral rhythmicity of feature-based and object-based mechanisms of selective visual attention
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Final Report Abstract
The rhythmic theory of attention provides a groundbreaking new framework for the mechanisms underlying selective visual attention. The core implication of this theory is that spatial attention operates rhythmically, which means that the environment is sampled in theta-rhythmic cycles, leading to alternating periods of increased or decreased perceptual sensitivity. Parallel to the discovery of behavioral rhythmicity of attentional processes, it was shown recently that spatiotemporal predictions can guide visual search by robust long-term representations of the learned regularities. Both findings underline the crucial role of time as a factor in visual attention. Thus far, however, it is unknown how these mechanisms interact. Based on the hypothesis that memory-based predictions can guide the rhythmicity of visual attention, experiments from both fields are combined. Human subjects are presented with two stimuli on which they are asked to perform an attention task. Both the length of the cue-to-target interval and the spatiotemporal predictability of the cues is manipulated. Besides behavioral data, EEG recordings are performed to understand how predictability influences ongoing behavioral as well as brain rhythms of attention. Preliminary results suggest that the predictability of the cues accelerates the attentional rhythms. More advanced EEG analyses are planned based on a very recent publication and findings will help to understand how intrinsic rhythms are influenced by external variables. Moreover, because the external variable in this context is a memory component, this study shows how memories can influence the temporal dynamics of attentional processes.
Publications
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“Time counts: Spatiotemporal predictions guide visual rhythmic attention” at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS)
Berit Hartjen
