Galas Laurie, Donovan Ian, Dugué Laura
Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Paris F-75006, France
Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003.
J Neurosci. 2025 Feb 12;45(7):e1616242024. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1616-24.2024.
Attention is key to perception and human behavior, and evidence shows that it periodically samples sensory information (<20 Hz). However, this view has been recently challenged due to methodological concerns and gaps in our understanding of the function and mechanism of rhythmic attention. Here we used an intensive ∼22 h psychophysical protocol combined with reverse correlation analyses to infer the neural representation underlying these rhythms. Participants (male/female) performed a task in which covert spatial (sustained and exploratory) attention was manipulated and then probed at various delays. Our results show that sustained and exploratory attention periodically modulate perception via different neural computations. While sustained attention suppresses distracting stimulus features at the alpha (∼12 Hz) frequency, exploratory attention increases the gain around task-relevant stimulus feature at the theta (∼6 Hz) frequency. These findings reveal that both modes of rhythmic attention differentially shape sensory tuning, expanding the current understanding of the rhythmic sampling theory of attention.
注意力是感知和人类行为的关键，有证据表明它会定期对感觉信息进行采样（<20赫兹）。然而，由于方法上的问题以及我们对节律性注意力的功能和机制理解上的差距，这一观点最近受到了挑战。在这里，我们使用了一个约22小时的密集心理物理学方案，并结合反向相关分析来推断这些节律背后的神经表征。参与者（男性/女性）执行一项任务，其中隐蔽的空间（持续和探索性）注意力受到操纵，然后在不同延迟下进行探测。我们的结果表明，持续注意力和探索性注意力通过不同的神经计算方式定期调节感知。持续注意力在阿尔法（约12赫兹）频率下抑制干扰性刺激特征，而探索性注意力在西塔（约6赫兹）频率下增加与任务相关刺激特征周围的增益。这些发现揭示了两种节律性注意力模式对感觉调谐的影响不同，扩展了当前对注意力节律采样理论的理解。
