Temporal Dynamics of Visual Attention Measured with Event-Related Potentials

Yoshiyuki Kashiwase,Kazumichi Matsumiya,Ichiro Kuriki,Satoshi Shioiri,Satoru Suzuki

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070922

Yoshiyuki Kashiwase, Kazumichi Matsumiya + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0070922

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Abstract

How attentional modulation on brain activities determines behavioral performance has been one of the most important issues in cognitive neuroscience. This issue has been addressed by comparing the temporal relationship between attentional modulations on neural activities and behavior. Our previous study measured the time course of attention with amplitude and phase coherence of steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) and found that the modulation latency of phase coherence rather than that of amplitude was consistent with the latency of behavioral performance. In this study, as a complementary report, we compared the time course of visual attention shift measured by event-related potentials (ERPs) with that by target detection task. We developed a novel technique to compare ERPs with behavioral results and analyzed the EEG data in our previous study. Two sets of flickering stimulus at different frequencies were presented in the left and right visual hemifields, and a target or distracter pattern was presented randomly at various moments after an attention-cue presentation. The observers were asked to detect targets on the attended stimulus after the cue. We found that two ERP components, P300 and N2pc, were elicited by the target presented at the attended location. Time-course analyses revealed that attentional modulation of the P300 and N2pc amplitudes increased gradually until reaching a maximum and lasted at least 1.5 s after the cue onset, which is similar to the temporal dynamics of behavioral performance. However, attentional modulation of these ERP components started later than that of behavioral performance. Rather, the time course of attentional modulation of behavioral performance was more closely associated with that of the concurrently recorded SSVEPs analyzed. These results suggest that neural activities reflected not by either the P300 or N2pc, but by the SSVEPs, are the source of attentional modulation of behavioral performance.

Highlights

Visual attention is a brain function that selects potentially important information from a vast amount of incoming sensory information
We found that two event-related potentials (ERPs) components, P300 and N2pc, were modulated by attention
These sustained temporal characteristics suggest that amplitude changes follow the temporal dynamics of endogenous attention, and indicate that the amplitude of both the P300 and N2pc components are sensitive measures for attention

Summary

Introduction

Visual attention is a brain function that selects potentially important information from a vast amount of incoming sensory information. Optimal scene perception often requires the shifting of visual attention to various locations in a scene, and the time course of these shifts is one of the most important factors for the function. A typical measurement method is a pre-cue paradigm [1,2]. A similar time course of attention shift has been seen for physiological measurements of steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Muller et al [6] measured the time course of attentional modulation by tracking SSVEP amplitude in time and estimated that it takes 600–800 ms for cortical facilitation by visual attention (see [7,8,9])

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