The Functional Roles of Attention
OpenAlex – May 08, 2017
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Attention actively reshapes our visual perception, even mimicking changes in physical brightness by identically modulating neural firing rates. Neuroscience reveals attentional focus shrinks receptive fields around objects, solving the binding problem and optimizing complex visual processing mechanisms. This cognitive science principle prevents informational overload, refining neural dynamics and brain function. Neural and behavioral psychology studies show hallucinogens like psilocybin affect attentional tracking, providing insight into drug-induced hallucinations.
Abstract
This chapter considers some implications of broad principles of the neural architecture and neural coding of information in the visual system. J. H Reynolds and R. Desimone suggest that attentional shrinkage of receptive fields around attended objects serves to solve the binding problem. Attention serves to optimise the veridicality of responses of cells involved in coding complex properties of stimuli. Neurophysiological studies have shown that attentional modulation and changes in the luminance of a stimulus can create identical modulations of firing rates. Modulating the strength of a stimulus by altering its perceived brightness is only one function of attention. Independent evidence that a role of attention is to prevent informational overload comes from the case of hallucinogens. A possible mechanism for how psilocybin affects attentional tracking can be identified by looking closer at how this chemical generates drug-induced hallucinations.