Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Dec 29;106(52):22456-61. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0907573106. Epub 2009 Dec 10.
The question of whether attention makes sensory impressions appear more intense has been a matter of debate for over a century. Recent psychophysical studies have reported that attention increases apparent contrast of visual stimuli, but the issue continues to be debated. We obtained converging neurophysiological evidence from human observers as they judged the relative contrast of visual stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields following a lateralized auditory cue. Cross-modal cueing of attention boosted the apparent contrast of the visual target in association with an enlarged neural response in the contralateral visual cortex that began within 100 ms after target onset. The magnitude of the enhanced neural response was positively correlated with perceptual reports of the cued target being higher in contrast. The results suggest that attention increases the perceived contrast of visual stimuli by boosting early sensory processing in the visual cortex.
注意力是否会使感觉印象更加强烈，这个问题已经争论了一个多世纪。最近的心理物理学研究报告称，注意力会增加视觉刺激的表观对比度，但这个问题仍在争论中。当被试者根据侧化的听觉提示判断呈现于左右视野的视觉刺激的相对对比度时，我们从他们那里获得了来自人类观察者的神经生理学证据。跨模态注意力提示与对侧视觉皮层中神经反应的扩大有关，这种扩大始于目标出现后 100 毫秒内，从而提高了视觉目标的表观对比度。增强的神经反应的幅度与被提示目标的对比度感知报告呈正相关，被提示目标的对比度更高。结果表明，注意力通过增强视觉皮层的早期感觉处理来增加视觉刺激的感知对比度。
