Cross-modal orienting of exogenous attention results in visual-cortical facilitation, not suppression.

ABSTRACT: Attention may be oriented exogenously (i.e., involuntarily) to the location of salient stimuli, resulting in improved perception. However, it is unknown whether exogenous attention improves perception by facilitating processing of attended information, suppressing processing of unattended information, or both. To test this question, we measured behavioral performance and cue-elicited neural changes in the electroencephalogram as participants (N = 19) performed a task in which a spatially non-predictive auditory cue preceded a visual target. Critically, this cue was either presented at a peripheral target location or from the center of the screen, allowing us to isolate spatially specific attentional activity. We find that both behavior and attention-mediated changes in visual-cortical acti

SUBMITTER: Keefe JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8119727 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature