RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Attention Selectively Modifies the Representation of Individual Faces in the Human Brain
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 6979
OP 6989
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4142-12.2013
VO 33
IS 16
A1 Gratton, Caterina
A1 Sreenivasan, Kartik K.
A1 Silver, Michael A.
A1 D'Esposito, Mark
YR 2013
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/16/6979.abstract
AB Attention modifies neural tuning for low-level features, but it is unclear how attention influences tuning for complex stimuli. We investigated this question in humans using fMRI and face stimuli. Participants were shown six faces (F1–F6) along a morph continuum, and selectivity was quantified by constructing tuning curves for individual voxels. Face-selective voxels exhibited greater responses to their preferred face than to nonpreferred faces, particularly in posterior face areas. Anterior face areas instead displayed tuning for face categories: voxels in these areas preferred either the first (F1–F3) or second (F4–F6) half of the morph continuum. Next, we examined the effects of attention on voxel tuning by having subjects direct attention to one of the superimposed images of F1 and F6. We found that attention selectively enhanced responses in voxels preferring the attended face. Together, our results demonstrate that single voxels carry information about individual faces and that the nature of this information varies across cortical face areas. Additionally, we found that attention selectively enhances these representations. Our findings suggest that attention may act via a unitary principle of selective enhancement of responses to both simple and complex stimuli across multiple stages of the visual hierarchy.