Attention acts to suppress goal-based conflict under high competition

TL;DR

This study reveals that under high visual competition, top-down attention suppresses neural signals for both relevant and irrelevant stimuli to reduce interference, contrasting with its known selective enhancement under low competition.

Contribution

It demonstrates that top-down attention suppresses neural signals for both relevant and irrelevant stimuli during high competition, a novel insight into attentional mechanisms.

Findings

Top-down attention suppresses neural signals during high competition.

Suppression occurs within 100 ms of stimulus onset.

This suppression reduces feedforward signals of irrelevant stimuli.

Abstract

It is known that when multiple stimuli are present, top-down attention selectively enhances the neural signal in the visual cortex for task-relevant stimuli, but this has been tested only under conditions of minimal competition of visual attention. Here we show during high competition, that is, two stimuli in a shared receptive field possessing opposing modulatory goals, top-down attention suppresses both task-relevant and irrelevant neural signals within 100 ms of stimuli onset. This non-selective engagement of top-down attentional resources serves to reduce the feedforward signal representing irrelevant stimuli.