Single-unit recording studies in the macaque have carefully documented the modulatory effects of attention on the response properties of visual cortical neurons. Attention produces qualitatively different effects on firing rate, depending on whether a stimulus appears alone or accompanied by distracters. Studies of contrast gain control in anesthetized mammals have found parallel patterns of results when the luminance contrast of a stimulus increases. This finding suggests that attention has co-opted the circuits that mediate contrast gain control and that it operates by increasing the effective contrast of the attended stimulus. Consistent with this idea, microstimulation of the frontal eye fields, one of several areas that control the allocation of spatial attention, induces spatially local increases in sensitivity both at the behavioral level and among neurons in area V4, where endogenously generated attention increases contrast sensitivity. Studies in the slice have begun to explain how modulatory signals might cause such increases in sensitivity.

中文翻译：

---

视觉处理的注意调制。

猕猴的单单位记录研究已经仔细记录了注意力对视觉皮层神经元反应特性的调节作用。注意是对刺激率产生本质上不同的影响，具体取决于刺激是单独出现还是伴随干扰物出现。在麻醉的哺乳动物中进行对比增益控制的研究发现，当刺激的亮度对比增加时，结果的结果平行。这一发现表明，注意力已经选择了介导对比度增益控制的电路，并且它通过增加参与刺激的有效对比度来工作。与这种想法一致的是，额眼视野的微刺激是控制空间注意力分配的几个区域之一，在行为水平和区域V4的神经元之间，在空间上引起敏感性的空间局部增加，其中内源性产生的注意力增加了对比敏感性。切片中的研究已开始解释调制信号如何引起灵敏度的这种增加。