Content area
Full text
About the Authors:
Sirawaj Itthipuripat
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
* E-mail: [email protected] (SI); [email protected] (JTS)
Affiliation: Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9302-0964
Kexin Cha
Roles Data curation, Investigation
Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America
Anna Byers
Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing - review & editing
Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America
John T. Serences
Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing - review & editing
* E-mail: [email protected] (SI); [email protected] (JTS)
Affiliations Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America, Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of AmericaAbstract
Selective attention supports the prioritized processing of relevant sensory information to facilitate goal-directed behavior. Studies in human subjects demonstrate that attentional gain of cortical responses can sufficiently account for attention-related improvements in behavior. On the other hand, studies using highly trained nonhuman primates suggest that reductions in neural noise can better explain attentional facilitation of behavior. Given the importance of selective information processing in nearly all domains of cognition, we sought to reconcile these competing accounts by testing the hypothesis that extensive behavioral training alters the neural mechanisms that support selective attention. We tested this hypothesis using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure stimulus-evoked visual responses from human subjects while they performed a selective spatial attention task over the course of ~1 month. Early in training, spatial attention led to an increase in the gain of stimulus-evoked visual responses. Gain was apparent within ~100 ms of stimulus onset, and a quantitative model based on signal detection theory (SDT) successfully linked the magnitude of this gain modulation to attention-related improvements in behavior. However, after extensive training, this early attentional gain was eliminated even though there were still substantial attention-related improvements in behavior. Accordingly, the SDT-based model required noise reduction to account for the link between the stimulus-evoked...