Selective attention informs decision-making by biasing perceptual processing towards task-relevant stimuli. In experimental and computational literature, this is most often implemented through top-down excitation of selected stimuli. However, physiological and anatomical evidence shows that in certain situations, top-down signals could instead be inhibitory. In this study, we investigated how such an inhibitory mechanism of top-down attention compares with an excitatory one. We did so in a neurorobotics context where the agent was controlled using an established hierarchical architecture. We augmented the architecture with an attentional system that implemented top-down attention biasing as connection gains. We tested four models of top-down attention on the simulated agent performing a foraging task: without top-down biasing, with only excitatory top-down gain, with only inhibitory top-down gain, and with both excitatory and inhibitory top-down gain. We manipulated the rewarddistractor ratio that was presented and assessed the agent's performance using accumulated rewards and the latency of the selection. Using these measures, we provide evidence that excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms of attention complement each other.

中文翻译：

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经典和自上而下驱动的注意力抑制机制之间的互补相互作用

选择性注意通过将感知处理偏向与任务相关的刺激来为决策提供信息。在实验和计算文献中，这通常是通过选定刺激的自上而下激发来实现的。然而，生理学和解剖学证据表明，在某些情况下，自上而下的信号可能反而是抑制性的。在这项研究中，我们研究了这种自上而下的注意力抑制机制与兴奋性机制的比较。我们是在神经机器人学环境中这样做的，其中代理使用既定的层次结构进行控制。我们使用注意力系统增强了架构，该系统实现了自上而下的注意力偏差作为连接增益。我们在执行觅食任务的模拟代理上测试了四种自上而下的注意力模型：没有自上而下的偏见，只有兴奋性自上而下增益，只有抑制性自上而下增益，以及兴奋性和抑制性自上而下增益。我们操纵了呈现的奖励干扰器比率，并使用累积奖励和选择的延迟来评估代理的表现。使用这些措施，我们提供了注意力的兴奋性和抑制性机制相互补充的证据。