title: Temporal trade-off effects in sustained attention: dynamics in visual cortex predict the target detection performance during distraction.
abstract: Models of visual selective attention have suggested that the representation of specific features characterizing a target object is enhanced in the visual cortex, at the cost of competing task-irrelevant information. In psychophysical studies, however, such attentional enhancement has been shown to result in reduced perceptual sensitivity when maintained over periods of several seconds. Two experiments examined the relationship between target detection behavior and electrocortical facilitation in human visual cortex during sustained attention under competition, in near real time. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) were used in a change detection paradigm, in which a stream of flickering grating stimuli containing target events was fully overlapping with distractor faces (experiment 1) or competing complex scenes (experiment 2), covering the same part of the visual field. Beamformer source localization was used to test plausibility of lower-tier visual cortex involvement in modulation of the ssVEP signal. Results of both experiments suggest that early overallocation of visual cortical resources to the attended stimulus stream is associated with rapid reduction of electrocortical facilitation and poor change detection across the entire trial. By contrast, temporally balanced dynamics in visual cortex predicted accurate change detection. Together, the present results support models of sustained selective attention that emphasize competition for resources in lower-tier visual cortex. These models can be extended by a temporal dimension, on which attentive behavior is characterized by frugal resource sharing across the viewing time.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany. wieser@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de
authors: Matthias J
authors: MJ
authors: Wieser
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Keil
references: Psychophysiology. 2009 Jul;46(4):718-25
references: 19490512
references: Neuropsychologia. 2007 Apr 8;45(7):1393-9
references: 17161441
references: Nat Neurosci. 1998 Nov;1(7):631-4
references: 10196572
references: J Neurosci. 1999 Mar 1;19(5):1736-53
references: 10024360
references: Neuroreport. 2006 Feb 6;17(2):163-6
references: 16407764
references: Psychol Res. 2007 Mar;71(2):126-39
references: 16341546
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 Jan 16;98(2):694-9
references: 11209067
references: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1992 Aug;18(3):849-60
references: 1500880
references: Nat Neurosci. 2006 Oct;9(10):1243-5
references: 16964254
references: Psychophysiology. 2000 Jul;37(4):523-32
references: 10934911
references: Psychol Sci. 2002 Mar;13(2):119-24
references: 11933994
references: Hum Brain Mapp. 2007 Apr;28(4):323-34
references: 16779799
references: Neuroimage. 2007 Sep 1;37(3):947-55
references: 17629501
references: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2002 Dec;15(1):31-45
references: 12433381
references: Neuroreport. 2008 Aug 27;19(13):1277-81
references: 18695507
references: Psychol Res. 2005 Jan;69(3):191-200
references: 15597184
references: Vision Res. 2008 Aug;48(18):1902-9
references: 18611406
references: Psychophysiology. 2000 Mar;37(2):127-52
references: 10731765
references: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 1998 Apr;6(4):249-61
references: 9593922
references: Psychon Bull Rev. 1999 Mar;6(1):87-92
references: 12199316
references: Trends Cogn Sci. 2006 Jan;10(1):38-45
references: 16318922
references: J Neurosci. 2010 Jan 6;30(1):148-60
references: 20053897
references: J Neurosci. 2008 Sep 24;28(39):9890-4
references: 18815273
references: Annu Rev Neurosci. 1995;18:193-222
references: 7605061
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Sep 19;103(38):14250-4
references: 16956975
references: Annu Rev Neurosci. 2000;23:315-41
references: 10845067
references: Cereb Cortex. 2008 Aug;18(8):1892-9
references: 18063562