A common neural mechanism for preventing and terminating the allocation of attention.
A common neural mechanism for preventing and terminating the allocation of attention.
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.1864-12.2012
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发表时间：
2012-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Luck SJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sawaki R;Geng JJ;Luck SJ
人们对注意力集中以促进感知的机制知之甚多，但对注意力在感知被关注对象完成后发生的变化知之甚少。一种可能是注意力的焦点被动地消失了。第二种可能性是，注意力在感知完成后被主动终止，以便大脑可以为下一个目标做好准备。本研究采用人类事件相关电位（ERP）研究了这一问题，重点关注N2pc成分（注意力部署的神经测量）和Pd成分（注意力抑制的神经测量）。我们发现，主动抑制发生，以防止分配注意到已知的干扰，并终止注意后，参加对象的感知完成。此外，主动抑制的神经测量与注意力分配中试验间变化的行为测量相关。因此，主动抑制似乎是一种通用机制，既可以阻止也可以终止注意力的分配。
Much is known about the mechanisms by which attention is focused to facilitate perception, but little is known about what happens to attention after perception of the attended object is complete. One possibility is that the focus of attention passively fades. A second possibility is that attention is actively terminated after the completion of perception so that the brain can be prepared for the next target. The present study investigated this issue with event-related potentials (ERPs) in humans, focusing on the N2pc component (a neural measure of attentional deployment) and the Pd component (a neural measure of attentional suppression). We found that active suppression occurred both to prevent the allocation of attention to known distractors and to terminate attention after the perception of an attended object was complete. In addition, the neural measure of active suppression was correlated with a behavioral measure of trial-to-trial variations in the allocation of attention. Active suppression therefore appears to be a general-purpose mechanism that both prevents and terminates the allocation of attention.