Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Selective attention to specific features within objects: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.

Anna Christina Nobre1, Anling Rao, Leonardo Chelazzi

  • 1University of Oxford, UK. kia.nobre@psy.ox.ac.uk

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|June 14, 2006
PubMed
Summary

Selective attention can inhibit specific features within a single object, influencing neural processing early in perception. This study demonstrates feature-specific negative priming, impacting brain activity during visual tasks.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Contrasting the classic effect of reward on attentional priority maps: behavioral evidence for an attentional gating of spatially-specific reward signals.

Psychological research·2026
Same author

Structural features of the hippocampus covary with memory-guided attention depending on the side of hippocampal sclerosis.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

MEG Evidence of Concurrent Bilateral and Hemisphere-Specific Developmental Patterns in Auditory Cortex.

Developmental science·2026
Same author

Ignoring distractors takes its (memory) toll.

Cognition·2025
Same author

A multilab investigation into the N2pc as an indicator of attentional selectivity: Direct replication of Eimer (1996).

Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior·2025
Same author

Dissociable effects of mild COVID-19 on short- and long-term memories.

Brain communications·2024

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Attention Research
  • Perceptual Psychology

Background:

  • Previous research on selective attention often used multi-object arrays, making it hard to isolate feature-specific effects from object or spatial attention.
  • Understanding how attention selects and ignores individual features within a single object is crucial for detailing attentional mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate feature-specific selective attention by examining the ability to select and ignore individual features within the same object.
  • To determine if inhibitory mechanisms, akin to negative priming, operate at the single-feature level for visual stimuli.
  • To explore the neural dynamics underlying feature-specific attention and inhibition using event-related potentials.

Main Methods:

  • Employed a negative-priming paradigm with bidimensional (color and motion) and unidimensional stimuli.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Manipulated attentional focus by instructing participants to prioritize either color or motion in successive blocks.
  • Recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to analyze neural modulation during selective attention and feature inhibition.

    • Main Results:

    • Behavioral data confirmed inhibitory, negative-priming effects at the single-feature level for both color and motion.
    • Electrophysiological findings revealed that inhibiting irrelevant features modulates brain activity in early perceptual processing stages.
    • Identical stimuli processed under different attentional conditions showed distinct neural responses, isolating attentional effects.

    Conclusions:

    • The study provides strong evidence for feature-specific selective attention and inhibition within single objects.
    • Neural modulation by feature attention occurs early in the perceptual analysis stream.
    • These findings advance our understanding of how the brain filters information at a granular, feature-based level.