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  • Review Article
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Attentional enhancement of spatial resolution: linking behavioural and neurophysiological evidence

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 14, pages 188–200 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Key Points

  • Vision is limited by spatial resolution, which is determined by photoreceptor spacing in the retina as well as the size, spacing and number of receptive fields (RFs) along the visual pathway.

  • To overcome this limitation, we can either 'overtly' attend to select objects of interest by moving our eyes to focus them on the part of the retina with highest spatial resolution — the fovea — or we can 'covertly' shift spatial attention without moving the eyes.

  • Covert spatial attention can enhance spatial resolution in various behavioural tasks, such as visual search, acuity tasks and texture segmentation tasks, at the cost of resolution at unattended locations. Moreover, covert attention distorts the perception of spatial features, such as spatial frequency, size and shape of objects as well as the distance between them.

  • Physiologically, attention shifts cortical RFs towards the focus of attention. Furthermore, RFs shrink when attention is directed to their location and RFs expand towards the focus of attention when it is directed nearby. These changes can qualitatively explain most of the behavioural findings.

  • The shifts of RFs selectively concentrate processing resources at the attentional focus and thereby enhance the representation of attended stimuli compared with unattended stimuli, which could underlie improved performance with attention in tasks limited by spatial resolution. RF shifts can distort the perception of space under the assumption of a labelled-line code for spatial position by changing the position of the RFs without updating their label.

  • RF shrinkage can improve spatial resolution performance by reducing spatial integration, thus excluding distracting information. RF shrinkage can modulate texture segmentation performance by changing the match between the texture scale and filter size.

  • To make a quantitative link between physiological and behavioural findings, future research would benefit from using common or more comparable paradigms.

Abstract

Attention allows us to select relevant sensory information for preferential processing. Behaviourally, it improves performance in various visual tasks. One prominent effect of attention is the modulation of performance in tasks that involve the visual system's spatial resolution. Physiologically, attention modulates neuronal responses and alters the profile and position of receptive fields near the attended location. Here, we develop a hypothesis linking the behavioural and electrophysiological evidence. The proposed framework seeks to explain how these receptive field changes enhance the visual system's effective spatial resolution and how the same mechanisms may also underlie attentional effects on the representation of spatial information.

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Figure 1: Allocation of spatial attention.
Figure 2: Behavioural evidence of attention effects on spatial resolution.
Figure 3: Attention alters perception of spatial stimulus features.
Figure 4: Attention alters receptive field profiles.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Treue, Y. Yeshurun, B. Lawrence, the current members of the Carrasco laboratory and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. This publication is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant NIH R01-EY019693 and NIH-R01-EY016200 (to M.C.), a Feodor-Lynen Research Fellowship, Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation and NIH NRSA 1F32EY021420 (to K.A.-E.).

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    Katharina Anton-Erxleben & Marisa Carrasco

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  1. Katharina Anton-Erxleben
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Glossary

Spatial resolution

The ability to discriminate two nearby points in space.

Fovea

The central part of the retina with highest receptor density, finest receptor-to-retinal ganglion cell mapping and therefore best spatial resolution. It contains the highest density of cones and the highest cone-to-rod ratio.

Extrastriate areas

All visual cortical areas that are higher in the processing hierarchy than primary visual cortex (V1; also known as striate cortex), including areas along the temporal (for example, area V4 and the inferior temporal cortex) as well as the dorsal pathway (for example, the medial temporal area and medial superior temporal area).

Eccentricity

The distance from the fovea. Visual field eccentricity corresponds to retinal eccentricity during fixation.

Spatial frequency tuning

The variation of the neuronal response to variations in spatial frequency of a stimulus. Spatial frequency describes the scale over which local contrast varies in a visual scene.

Saccades

Rapid eye movements that align gaze with a new location in visual space several times per second.

Spatial attention

Selection of a particular region in space so that processing of information from that location is enhanced. Here, we focus on visual spatial attention; that is, the selection of visual information and its effects on the activity of visual neurons and visual performance. Spatial attention can be directed overtly — that is, by moving the eyes towards the location of interest — or covertly — that is, without eye movements (covert attention). Covert attention can be allocated voluntarily (endogenous attention) or captured involuntarily (exogenous attention).

Attentional focus

The location in the visual field at which attention is allocated.

Cortical magnification factor

(CMF). The area of cortical surface to which a stimulus subtending 1 degree of visual angle on the retina projects. Often, the reciprocal of the CMF is used to determine the number of degrees visual angle a stimulus should subtend to activate 1mm of cortex. This number increases linearly with eccentricity.

Landolt stimulus

A typical stimulus used to measure acuity. Observers have to detect a small gap in a circle or square or discriminate the location of the gap (for example, the left or right side of the circle or square).

Vernier tasks

Typical tasks that are used to measure hyperacuity. Observers have to report a small lateral offset between two lines.

Selectively adapting

Prolonged exposure to a particular stimulus selectively decreases the responses of neurons involved in processing the stimulus and therefore decreases sensitivity to the subsequent presentation of the same or a similar stimulus.

Visual hemifields

These are one half of the visual field.

Retinotopic maps

Neighbouring locations on the retina also stimulate neighbouring locations in retinotopic cortical areas. Thus, even though distances may be distorted (cortical magnification), spatial relations between different locations are kept from the retina through higher levels of the visual processing hierarchy, including the visual areas V1, V2 and V4, and the medial temporal area.

Labelled-line code

The idea that information about a stimulus (for example, its location) in the nervous system is transmitted by activity in specific connections — 'labelled lines'. For example, receptive fields are 'labelled with their location in the visual field, and thus activity of a neuron with a certain receptive field creates the sensation of a stimulus at that particular location.

Feature-based attention

The selection of a particular feature within a dimension, such as vertical orientation, red colour or upwards motion direction. Processing of the selected feature is enhanced independent of spatial location.

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Anton-Erxleben, K., Carrasco, M. Attentional enhancement of spatial resolution: linking behavioural and neurophysiological evidence. Nat Rev Neurosci 14, 188–200 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3443

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