Attending multiple items decreases the selectivity of population responses in human primary visual cortex Journal Article

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Authors: Anderson, D. E.; Ester, E. F.; Serences, J. T.; Awh, E.
Article Title: Attending multiple items decreases the selectivity of population responses in human primary visual cortex
Abstract: Multiple studies have documented an inverse relationship between the number of to-be-attended or remembered items in a display ("set size") and task performance. The neural source of this decline in cognitive performance is currently under debate. Here, we used a combination of fMRI and a forward encoding model of orientation selectivity to generate population tuning functions for each of two stimuli while human observers attended either one or both items. We observed (1) clear population tuning functions for the attended item(s) that peaked at the stimulus orientation and decreased monotonically as the angular distance from this orientation increased, (2) a set-size-dependent decline in the relative precision of orientation-specific population responses, such that attending two items yielded a decline in selectivity of the population tuning function for each item, and (3) that the magnitude of the loss of precision in population tuning functions predicted individual differences in the behavioral cost of attending an additional item. These findings demonstrate that attending multiple items degrades the precision of perceptual representations for the target items and provides a straightforward account for the associated impairments in visually guided behavior.
Journal Title: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
Volume: 33
Issue: 22
ISSN: 1529-2401; 0270-6474
Publisher: Unknown  
Journal Place: United States
Date Published: 2013
Start Page: 9273
End Page: 9282
Language: eng
DOI/URL:

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0239-13.2013

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0239-13.2013
Notes: GR: R01 MH087214/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States; GR: R01-MH087214/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States; JID: 8102140; 7782-44-7 (Oxygen); NIHMS486192; OID: NLM: NIHMS486192 [Available on 11/29/13]; OID: NLM: PMC3710664 [Available on 11/29/13]; PMCR: 2013/11/29 00:00; ppublish