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The influence of target discriminability on the time course of attentional selection

Chennu, Srivas, Craston, Patrick, Wyble, Brad, Bowman, Howard (2009) The influence of target discriminability on the time course of attentional selection. In: Proceedings of the 31th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. . pp. 1-6. (KAR id:24083)

Abstract

A wealth of neurophysiological data has demonstrated that visual attention can selectively enhance target representations early in the visual processing pathway. In conjunction, behavioural evidence tells us that the extent to which irrelevant items interfere with target processing depends on their featural similarity to the target. In this context, how does target discriminability influence temporal selection? We present results from an electrophysiology study that addresses this question by investigating the time course of the neural processes involved in target selection as target distinctiveness is varied. The results suggest that, in line with previous findings, making discrimination harder reduces the accuracy of target identification. We find that there are significant differences in the perceptual processing of the target in the two conditions, as indexed by early visual ERPs and the P3 ERP. We ground this and previous empirical evidence within a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanism of attentional selection represented in the ST2 model, a neural network model of temporal attention and working memory. By simulating both experimental conditions, we show that the model provides a convincing explanation of the pattern of experimental results, in addition to informing questions about the nature and time course of attentional selection.

Item Type: Conference or workshop item (Paper)
Uncontrolled keywords: Visual Masking, Event-Related Potential, Temporal Selection
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics (inc Computing science) > QA 76 Software, computer programming,
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Computing
Depositing User: Srivas Chennu
Date Deposited: 29 Mar 2010 12:13 UTC
Last Modified: 12 Jul 2022 10:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/24083 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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