title: Activity in primary visual cortex predicts performance in a visual detection task.
abstract: Visual attention can affect both neural activity and behavior in humans. To quantify possible links between the two, we measured activity in early visual cortex (V1, V2 and V3) during a challenging pattern-detection task. Activity was dominated by a large response that was independent of the presence or absence of the stimulus pattern. The measured activity quantitatively predicted the subject's pattern-detection performance: when activity was greater, the subject was more likely to correctly discern the presence or absence of the pattern. This stimulus-independent activity had several characteristics of visual attention, suggesting that attentional mechanisms modulate activity in early visual cortex, and that this attention-related activity strongly influences performance.
authors.affiliation: Stanford University, Dept. of Psychology, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 420/400, Stanford, California 94305-2130, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ress
authors.forename: B T
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Backus
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Heeger
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000378:metabolism*