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Attention alters appearance

Abstract

Does attention alter appearance? This critical issue, debated for over a century, remains unsettled. From psychophysical evidence that covert attention affects early vision—it enhances contrast sensitivity and spatial resolution—and from neurophysiological evidence that attention increases the neuronal contrast sensitivity (contrast gain), one could infer that attention changes stimulus appearance. Surprisingly, few studies have directly investigated this issue. Here we developed a psychophysical method to directly assess the phenomenological correlates of attention in humans. We show that attention alters appearance; it boosts the apparent stimulus contrast. These behavioral results are consistent with neurophysiological findings suggesting that attention changes the strength of a stimulus by increasing its 'effective contrast' or salience.

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Figure 1: Sequence of events in a single trial.
Figure 2: Appearance psychometric functions for experiment 1 (low contrast).
Figure 3: Attentional effects on apparent contrast for individual observers.
Figure 4: Effect of covert attention on apparent contrast.
Figure 5: Appearance psychometric functions for experiment 2 (high contrast).
Figure 6: Appearance psychometric functions for when observers report the lower contrast grating (control experiment 3).

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Acknowledgements

A grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to M.C. supported this study (BCS-9910734). S.R. was supported by the Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund at NYU College of Arts and Science, and by NSF REU Site Grant 0099716. We thank M. Landy, L. Maloney, B. McElree, D. Pelli, Y. Yeshurun and all the members in the Carrasco lab for their helpful comments.

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Correspondence to Marisa Carrasco.

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Carrasco, M., Ling, S. & Read, S. Attention alters appearance. Nat Neurosci 7, 308–313 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1194

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