Attention drives human numerosity-selective responses

TY - JOUR

T1 - Attention drives human numerosity-selective responses

AU - Cai, Yuxuan

AU - Hofstetter, Shir

AU - Harvey, Ben M

AU - Dumoulin, Serge O

N1 - Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PY - 2022/6/28

Y1 - 2022/6/28

N2 - Numerosity, the set size of a group of items, helps guide behavior and decisions. Previous studies have shown that neural populations respond selectively to numerosities. How numerosity is extracted from the visual scene is a longstanding debate, often contrasting low-level visual with high-level cognitive processes. Here, we investigate how attention influences numerosity-selective responses. The stimuli consisted of black and white dots within the same display. Participants' attention was focused on either black or white dots, while we systematically changed the numerosity of black, white, and total dots. Using 7 T fMRI, we show that the numerosity-tuned neural populations respond only when attention is focused on their preferred numerosity, irrespective of the unattended or total numerosities. Without attention, responses to preferred numerosity are suppressed. Unlike traditional effects of attention in the visual cortex, where attention enhances already existing responses, these results suggest that attention is required to drive numerosity-selective responses.

AB - Numerosity, the set size of a group of items, helps guide behavior and decisions. Previous studies have shown that neural populations respond selectively to numerosities. How numerosity is extracted from the visual scene is a longstanding debate, often contrasting low-level visual with high-level cognitive processes. Here, we investigate how attention influences numerosity-selective responses. The stimuli consisted of black and white dots within the same display. Participants' attention was focused on either black or white dots, while we systematically changed the numerosity of black, white, and total dots. Using 7 T fMRI, we show that the numerosity-tuned neural populations respond only when attention is focused on their preferred numerosity, irrespective of the unattended or total numerosities. Without attention, responses to preferred numerosity are suppressed. Unlike traditional effects of attention in the visual cortex, where attention enhances already existing responses, these results suggest that attention is required to drive numerosity-selective responses.

KW - Attention/physiology

KW - Humans

KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods

U2 - 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111005

DO - 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111005

M3 - Article

C2 - 35767956

SN - 2211-1247

VL - 39

SP - 111005

JO - Cell Reports

JF - Cell Reports

IS - 13

ER -