Unmasking the contribution of low-level features to the guidance of attention

作者：Ossandon Jose P^*; Onat Selim; Cazzoli Dario; Nyffeler Thomas; Mueri Rene; Koenig Peter

来源：Neuropsychologia, 2012, 50(14): 3478-3487.

DOI：10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.09.043

• Attention control
• Neglect
• TMS
• Bottom-up
• Saliency

The role of low-level stimulus-driven control in the guidance of overt visual attention has been difficult to establish because low- and high-level visual content are spatially correlated within natural visual stimuli. Here we show that impairment of parietal cortical areas, either permanently by a lesion or reversibly by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), leads to fixation of locations with higher values of low-level features as compared to control subjects or in a no-rTMS condition. Moreover, this unmasking of stimulus-driven control crucially depends on the intrahemispheric balance between top-down and bottom-up cortical areas. This result suggests that although in normal behavior high-level features might exert a strong influence, low-level features do contribute to guide visual selection during the exploration of complex natural stimuli.

• 出版日期2012-12