A well-established finding in the literature of human studies is that alpha activity (rhythmical brain activity around 10 Hz) shows retinotopic amplitude modulation during shifts in visual attention. Thus, it has long been argued that alpha amplitude modulation might play a crucial role in attention-driven alterations in visual information processing. Recently, there has been a revival of the topic, driven in part by new studies directly investigating the possible causal relationship between alpha activity and responses to visual input, both neuronally and perceptually. Here, we discuss evidence for and against a causal role of alpha activity in visual attentional processing. We conclude with hypotheses regarding the mechanisms by which top-down-modulated alpha activity in the parietal cortex might select visual information for attentive processing.

人类研究文献中一个公认的发现是 alpha 活动（大约 10 Hz 的有节奏的大脑活动）在视觉注意力转移期间显示出视网膜调幅。因此，长期以来一直认为 alpha 幅度调制可能在视觉信息处理中的注意力驱动改变中发挥关键作用。最近，这个话题重新流行起来，部分原因是新研究直接调查了 alpha 活动与视觉输入反应之间可能的因果关系，包括神经元和知觉。在这里，我们讨论支持和反对 alpha 活动在视觉注意处理中的因果作用的证据。