Adaptive allocation of attentional gain.
Adaptive allocation of attentional gain.
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.5642-08.2009
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发表时间：
2009-09-23
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Serences JT
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Scolari M;Serences JT
人类善于区分非常相似的刺激，当结果是严重的后果时（例如，对于外科医生或空中交通管制员），这种能力尤其重要。传统上，选择性注意被认为是通过增加与行为相关对象的定义特征（例如颜色，方向等）调谐的感觉神经元的增益来促进感知。相反，最近的数学模型反直觉地表明，在许多情况下，注意力增益应该应用于那些远离相关特征的神经元，特别是在区分高度相似的刺激时。在这里，我们使用心理物理学的方法来批判性地评估这些“理想观察者”模型。这些数据表明，注意力增强了信息量最大的感觉神经元的增益，即使这些神经元远离行为相关的目标特征。此外，个人在测试结束时采用最佳注意力增益设置的程度预测了困难视觉辨别任务的成功率，以及重复测试会话（学习）中发生的任务改进量。与大多数传统的解释相反，这些观察结果表明，注意力增益的主要功能不仅仅是增强目标特征的表征，而是优化当前感知任务的性能。此外，增益的个体差异表明，低水平的注意力现象的操作特性是不稳定的特质属性和注意力如何部署的可变性可能在确定感知能力中发挥重要作用。
Humans are adept at distinguishing between stimuli that are very similar, an ability that is particularly crucial when the outcome is of serious consequence (e.g. for a surgeon or air traffic controller). Traditionally, selective attention was thought to facilitate perception by increasing the gain of sensory neurons tuned to the defining features of a behaviorally relevant object (e.g. color, orientation, etc.). In contrast, recent mathematical models counter-intuitively suggest that in many cases attentional gain should be applied to neurons that are tuned away from relevant features, especially when discriminating highly similar stimuli. Here we used psychophysical methods to critically evaluate these ‘ideal observer’ models. The data demonstrate that attention enhances the gain of the most informative sensory neurons, even when these neurons are tuned away from the behaviorally relevant target feature. Moreover, the degree to which an individual adopted optimal attentional gain settings by the end of testing predicted success rates on a difficult visual discrimination task, as well as the amount of task improvement that occurred across repeated testing sessions (learning). Contrary to most traditional accounts, these observations suggest that the primary function of attentional gain is not simply to enhance the representation of target features, but to optimize performance on the current perceptual task. Additionally, individual differences in gain suggest that the operating characteristics of low-level attentional phenomena are not stable trait-like attributes and that variability in how attention is deployed may play an important role in determining perceptual abilities.