SENSORY GAIN-CONTROL (AMPLIFICATION) AS A MECHANISM OF SELECTIVE ATTENTION - ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL AND NEUROIMAGING EVIDENCE

Both physiological and behavioral studies have suggested that stimulus -driven neural activity in the sensory pathways can be modulated in am plitude during selective attention. Recordings of event-related brain potentials indicate that such sensory gain control or amplification pr ocesses play an important role in visual-spatial attention. Combined e vent-related brain potential and neuroimaging experiments provide stro ng evidence that attentional gain control operates at an early stage o f visual processing in extrastriate cortical areas. These data support early selection theories of attention and provide a basis for disting uishing between separate mechanisms of attentional suppression (of una ttended inputs) and attentional facilitation (of attended inputs).