Spatial scaling of the profile of selective attention in the visual field

Matthew A. Gannon, Ashley A. Knapp, Thomas G. Adams, Stephanie M. Long, Nathan A. Parks

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Neural mechanisms of selective attention must be capable of adapting to variation in the absolute size of an attended stimulus in the ever-changing visual environment. To date, little is known regarding how attentional selection interacts with fluctuations in the spatial expanse of an attended object. Here, we use event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the scaling of attentional enhancement and suppression across the visual field. We measured ERPs while participants performed a task at fixation that varied in its attentional demands (attentional load) and visual angle (1.0° or 2.5°). Observers were presented with a stream of task-relevant stimuli while foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral visual locations were probed by irrelevant distractor stimuli. We found two important effects in the N1 component of visual ERPs. First, N1 modulations to task-relevant stimuli indexed attentional selection of stimuli during the load task and further correlated with task performance. Second, with increased task size, attentional modulation of the N1 to distractor stimuli showed a differential pattern that was consistent with a scaling of attentional selection. Together, these results demonstrate that the size of an attended stimulus scales the profile of attentional selection across the visual field and provides insights into the attentional mechanisms associated with such spatial scaling.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0162190
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume11
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Gannon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Institute of Mental HealthT32MH062994
National Institute of Mental Health

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General

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