The Normalization Model Captures the Effects of Object-based Attention in the Human Visual Cortex

Abstract

Here, we report that normalization model can capture the effects of object-based attention across the visual hierarchy in the human brain. We used superimposed pairs of objects and asked participants to attend to different targets. Modeling voxel responses, we demonstrated that the normalization model outperforms other models in predicting voxel responses in the presence of attention. Our results propose normalization as a canonical computation operating in the primate brain.