Learning attentional templates for value-based decision-making.

ABSTRACT: Attention filters sensory inputs to enhance task-relevant information. It is guided by an "attentional template" that represents the stimulus features that are currently relevant. To understand how the brain learns and uses templates, we trained monkeys to perform a visual search task that required them to repeatedly learn new attentional templates. Neural recordings found that templates were represented across the prefrontal and parietal cortex in a structured manner, such that perceptually neighboring templates had similar neural representations. When the task changed, a new attentional template was learned by incrementally shifting the template toward rewarded features. Finally, we found that attentional templates transformed stimulus features into a common value representation that all

SUBMITTER: Jahn CI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11574977 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature