Skip Navigation


Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on December 22, 2004
Cerebral Cortex 2005 15(9):1290-1298; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhi012
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
15/9/1290    most recent
bhi012v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (9)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Rose, M.
Right arrow Articles by Büchel, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Rose, M.
Right arrow Articles by Büchel, C.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved

The Functional and Temporal Characteristics of Top-down Modulation in Visual Selection

Michael Rose, Carmen Schmid, Almut Winzen, Tobias Sommer and Christian Büchel

NeuroImage Nord, Department of Neurology, University of Hamburg Medical School, Germany

Address correspondence to Dr Michael Rose, NeuroImage Nord, Department of Neurology, Hamburg University Medical School, Martinistrasse 52, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Email: rose{at}uke.uni-hamburg.de.

Perceptual load of an attended task influences the processing of irrelevant background stimuli. In a series of behavioral, functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) experiments we examined the influence of working memory (WM) load related to a relevant visual stimulus on the processing of irrelevant backgrounds. We further addressed two open questions about the mechanism of load-dependent modulation: (i) is this modulation dependent on regional activity (i.e. phasic)? (ii) At what processing stage does this modulation take place? Load was manipulated by a WM task and concurrently the processing of irrelevant visual objects was assessed with fMRI and EEG. To examine the dependency of this modulation on intrinsic activity, we varied the activity level of visual areas by presenting objects with different levels of degradation. Activity in the lateral occipital complex (LOC) increased with object visibility and was phasically modulated by WM load. Event related potentials revealed that this phasic modulation occurred ~170 ms after stimulus onset, indicative of an early selection under high load. The results indicate a phasic modulatory effect of WM load on visual object processing in the LOC that is comparable to the effects found for perceptual load manipulations.

Key Words: Attention • load • LOC • working memory


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Neurosci.Home page
M. G. Philiastides and P. Sajda
EEG-Informed fMRI Reveals Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Perceptual Decision Making
J. Neurosci., November 28, 2007; 27(48): 13082 - 13091.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J. Cogn. Neurosci.Home page
K. K. Sreenivasan, J. Katz, and A. P. Jha
Temporal Characteristics of Top-Down Modulations during Working Memory Maintenance: An Event-related Potential Study of the N170 Component.
J. Cogn. Neurosci., November 1, 2007; 19(11): 1836 - 1844.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J. Neurosci.Home page
J. Glascher, M. Rose, and C. Buchel
Independent Effects of Emotion and Working Memory Load on Visual Activation in the Lateral Occipital Complex
J. Neurosci., April 18, 2007; 27(16): 4366 - 4373.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.