TY - JOUR
T1 - Oscillatory bursts in parietal cortex reflect dynamic attention between multiple objects and ensembles
AU - Wutz, Andreas
AU - Zazio, Agnese
AU - Weisz, Nathan
N1 - Funding Information:
Received Jan. 30, 2020; revised June 24, 2020; accepted June 29, 2020. Author contributions: A.W. designed research; A.W. and A.Z. performed research; A.W. and N.W. analyzed data; A.W. wrote the first draft of the paper; A.W. wrote the paper; A.Z. and N.W. edited the paper; N.W. contributed unpublished reagents/analytic tools. This work was supported by Austrian Science Fund Lise-Meitner Grant Agreement M2496 to A.W. The authors declare no competing financial interests. Correspondence should be addressed to Andreas Wutz at andreas.wutz@sbg.ac.at. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0231-20.2020 Copyright © 2020 Wutz et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2020 Wutz et al.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/9/2
Y1 - 2020/9/2
N2 - The visual system uses two complimentary strategies to process multiple objects simultaneously within a scene and update their spatial positions in real time. It either uses selective attention to individuate a complex, dynamic scene into a few focal objects (i.e., object individuation), or it represents multiple objects as an ensemble by distributing attention more globally across the scene (i.e., ensemble grouping). Neural oscillations may be a key signature for focal object individuation versus distributed ensemble grouping, because they are thought to regulate neural excitability over visual areas through inhibitory control mechanisms. We recorded whole-head MEG data during a multiple-object tracking paradigm, in which human participants (13 female, 11 male) switched between different instructions for object individuation and ensemble grouping on different trials. The stimuli, responses, and the demand to keep track of multiple spatial locations over time were held constant between the two conditions. We observed increased a-band power (9-13 Hz) packed into oscillatory bursts in bilateral inferior parietal cortex during multiple-object processing. Single-trial analysis revealed greater burst occurrences on object individuation versus ensemble grouping trials. By contrast, we found no differences using standard analyses on across-trials averaged a-band power. Moreover, the bursting effects occurred only below/at, but not above, the typical capacity limits for multiple-object processing (at;4 objects). Our findings reveal the real-time neural correlates underlying the dynamic processing of multiple-object scenarios, which are modulated by grouping strategies and capacity. They support a rhythmic, a-pulsed organization of dynamic attention to multiple objects and ensembles.
AB - The visual system uses two complimentary strategies to process multiple objects simultaneously within a scene and update their spatial positions in real time. It either uses selective attention to individuate a complex, dynamic scene into a few focal objects (i.e., object individuation), or it represents multiple objects as an ensemble by distributing attention more globally across the scene (i.e., ensemble grouping). Neural oscillations may be a key signature for focal object individuation versus distributed ensemble grouping, because they are thought to regulate neural excitability over visual areas through inhibitory control mechanisms. We recorded whole-head MEG data during a multiple-object tracking paradigm, in which human participants (13 female, 11 male) switched between different instructions for object individuation and ensemble grouping on different trials. The stimuli, responses, and the demand to keep track of multiple spatial locations over time were held constant between the two conditions. We observed increased a-band power (9-13 Hz) packed into oscillatory bursts in bilateral inferior parietal cortex during multiple-object processing. Single-trial analysis revealed greater burst occurrences on object individuation versus ensemble grouping trials. By contrast, we found no differences using standard analyses on across-trials averaged a-band power. Moreover, the bursting effects occurred only below/at, but not above, the typical capacity limits for multiple-object processing (at;4 objects). Our findings reveal the real-time neural correlates underlying the dynamic processing of multiple-object scenarios, which are modulated by grouping strategies and capacity. They support a rhythmic, a-pulsed organization of dynamic attention to multiple objects and ensembles.
KW - Dynamic attention
KW - Ensemble attention
KW - Multiple-object attention
KW - Neural oscillations
KW - Parietal cortex
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0231-20.2020
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0231-20.2020
M3 - Article
C2 - 32753515
AN - SCOPUS:85090283686
VL - 40
SP - 6927
EP - 6937
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
SN - 0270-6474
IS - 36
ER -