Spitzer H, Desimone R, Moran J
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Science. 1988 Apr 15;240(4850):338-40. doi: 10.1126/science.3353728.
Single cells were recorded from cortical area V4 of two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) trained on a visual discrimination task with two levels of difficulty. Behavioral evidence indicated that the monkeys' discriminative abilities improved when the task was made more difficult. Correspondingly, neuronal responses to stimuli became larger and more selective in the difficult task. A control experiment demonstrated that changes in general arousal could not account for the effects of task difficulty on neuronal responses. It is concluded that increasing the amount of attention directed toward a stimulus can enhance the responsiveness and selectivity of the neurons that process it.
从两只恒河猴（猕猴）的V4皮质区域记录单细胞，这两只猴子接受了具有两种难度水平的视觉辨别任务训练。行为证据表明，当任务变得更困难时，猴子的辨别能力会提高。相应地，在困难任务中，神经元对刺激的反应变得更大且更具选择性。一项对照实验表明，一般唤醒水平的变化不能解释任务难度对神经元反应的影响。得出的结论是，增加对刺激的注意力可以增强处理该刺激的神经元的反应性和选择性。
