Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on January 19, 2005
Cerebral Cortex 2005 15(9):1424-1437; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhi023
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© Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved
Coherent Oscillatory Activity in Monkey Area V4 Predicts Successful Allocation of Attention
1 Brain Research Institute, Center for Emotional and Cognitive Sciences, University of Bremen, D-28334 Bremen, Germany and 2 Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Address correspondence to Dr Andreas Kreiter, Brain Research Institute, Center for Emotional and Cognitive Sciences, University of Bremen, PO Box 33 04 40, D-28334 Bremen, Germany. Email: kreiter{at}brain.uni-bremen.de.
Attention serves to select objects from often complex scenes for enhanced processing and perception. In particular, the perception of shape depends critically on attention for integrating the various parts of the selected object into a coherent representation of object shape. To study whether oscillatory neuronal synchrony may serve as a mechanism of attention in shape perception, we introduced a novel shape-tracking task requiring sustained attention to a morphing shape. Attention was found to strongly increase oscillatory currents underlying the recorded field potentials in the 
-frequency range, thus indicating enhanced neuronal synchrony within the population of V4 neurons representing the attended stimulus. Errors indicating a misdirection of attention to the distracter instead of the target were preceded by a corresponding shift of oscillatory activity from the target's neuronal representation to that of the distracter. No such effect was observed for errors unrelated to attention. Modulations of the attention-dependent enhancement of oscillatory activity occurred in correspondence with changing attentional demands during the course of a trial. The specificity of the effect of attentional errors together with the close coupling between attentional demand and oscillatory activity support the hypothesis that oscillatory neuronal synchrony serves as a mechanism of attention.
Key Words: attention • gamma band • oscillation • shape perception • synchronization • visual cortex
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