Primate Visual Perception: Motivated Attention in Naturalistic Scenes

Abstract

Research has consistently revealed enhanced neural activation corresponding to attended cues coupled with suppression to unattended cues. This attention effect depends both on the spatial features of stimuli and internal task goals. However, a large majority of research supporting this effect involves circumscribed tasks that possess few ecologically relevant characteristics. By comparison, natural scenes have the potential to engage an evolved attention system, which may be characterized by supplemental neural processing and integration compared to mechanisms engaged during reduced experimental paradigms. Here, we describe recent animal and human studies of naturalistic scene viewing to highlight the specific impact of social and affective processes on the neural mechanisms of attention modulation.

Keywords: FEF; IPS; LIP; amygdala; emotion.

FIGURE 1

Emotional and spatial foreknowledge enhances target detection speed. (A) Participants view central cue that may provide emotional information, spatial information, or both about an upcoming target. Participants were instructed to detect the direction of a tilted face among three vertical faces. (B) Cues could provide spatial information about the location of an upcoming target, indicated by an arrow, or no information, indicated by a diamond. Cues could also provide emotional information about the face of the upcoming target by the color red, indicating an angry face; the color green, indicating a neutral face; or provide no emotional information, indicated by black symbols. (C) Mean response time (RT) of valid (cue-directed attention toward target), uninformative (cue did not direct spatial attention), and invalid trials (cue-directed attention away from target). (D) Mean RT of negative, uninformative, and neutral emotional cues when target facial expressions were either negative or neutral. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences (p < 0.05). Adapted with permission from Mohanty et al. (2009).

FIGURE 2

Simplified diagram of major attention network nodes with the inclusion of affectively modulated regions in a human brain. Blue nodes denote cortical regions and green nodes denote subcortical nuclei. The dashed oval is subdivided into three thalamic nuclei. Amyg, amygdala; FEF, frontal eye field; IT, inferotemporal cortex; LGN, lateral geniculate nucleus; IPS, intraparietal sulcus; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; Pulv, pulvinar nucleus; TRN, thalamic reticular nucleus.