Zhou Yu, Zhang Liang, Axmacher Nikolai, Estefan Daniel Pacheco, Wang Dahui, Dai Yujian, Peng Xiaojing, Liu Shixiang, Xue Gui
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Department of Neuropsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2025 Oct 1;46(14):e70359. doi: 10.1002/hbm.70359.
Mounting evidence suggests that information processing in the visual hierarchy involves a progression from low-level perceptual to high-level conceptual features during visual perception, and a reverse traversal during memory retrieval. However, the nature of this processing hierarchy and its modulation by selective attention remain unclear. By using the drift-diffusion model, we found that slower reaction times for conceptual versus perceptual tasks were primarily due to differences in decision boundaries and nondecision times, which were not compensated by faster evidence accumulation for conceptual features. Using single-trial multivariate decoding of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data, we tracked the temporal dynamics of feature representation during visual perceptual and mnemonic tasks. During perception, selective attention reversed the onset times of perceptual and conceptual features in occipital and parietal lobes, enabling earlier detection of conceptual features. Stronger theta oscillation interactions between occipital and temporal regions during task preparation correlated with earlier onset times of target features in the occipital lobe. During retrieval, selective attention led to earlier peak times for perceptual compared to conceptual features in the frontal lobe. These findings provide novel insights into the dynamic nature of hierarchical processing during perception and memory retrieval, highlighting the critical role of selective attention in modulating information accumulation speed.
越来越多的证据表明，视觉层级中的信息处理在视觉感知过程中涉及从低级感知特征到高级概念特征的递进，而在记忆检索过程中则是反向遍历。然而，这种处理层级的本质及其受选择性注意的调节作用仍不清楚。通过使用漂移扩散模型，我们发现与感知任务相比，概念任务的反应时间较慢主要是由于决策边界和非决策时间的差异，而概念特征更快的证据积累并未对此进行补偿。利用脑磁图（MEG）数据的单试次多变量解码，我们追踪了视觉感知和记忆任务期间特征表征的时间动态。在感知过程中，选择性注意逆转了枕叶和顶叶中感知特征和概念特征的起始时间，从而能够更早地检测到概念特征。任务准备期间枕叶和颞叶区域之间更强的theta振荡相互作用与枕叶中目标特征的更早起始时间相关。在检索过程中，与额叶中的概念特征相比，选择性注意导致感知特征的峰值时间更早。这些发现为感知和记忆检索过程中层级处理的动态本质提供了新的见解，突出了选择性注意在调节信息积累速度方面的关键作用。
