Attention is more than meets the eye

Abstract

Our brains focus on important events and filter out distracting ones. An investigation in monkeys reveals a surprising dissociation between the neuronal and behavioural manifestations of attention. See Letter p.434 When we pay attention to certain locations, the responses of neurons in visual areas that represent those locations are enhanced. Here, Alexandre Zenon and Richard Krauzlis show that in adult rhesus monkeys, inactivation of the superior colliculus — part of the midbrain associated with eye movements — affects the perceptual effects of attention, but does not seem to affect the attentional modulation of upstream visual areas. Most work on attention is based on the idea that perceptual enhancement is driven by modulation of the visual response. This work suggests that visual attention involves other aspects of neuronal activity in the visual cortical areas — or perhaps other brain areas not directly associated with vision.