Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth perception is the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. It relies on two types of cues: binocular and monocular. Binocular cues depend on the combination of images from both eyes and how the eyes work together. Since the eyes are in slightly different positions, each eye captures a slightly different image. This disparity between images, known as binocular disparity, helps the brain interpret depth. When the brain compares these images, it determines the distance to an object.

Vision

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.

Parallel Processing

Parallel Processing

The brain processes sensory information rapidly due to parallel processing, which involves sending data across multiple neural pathways at the same time. This method allows the brain to manage various sensory qualities, such as shapes, colors, movements, and locations, all concurrently. For instance, when observing a forest landscape, the brain simultaneously processes the movement of leaves, the shapes of trees, the depth between them, and the various shades of green. This enables a quick and...

Visual System

Visual System

Light enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent, dome-shaped surface covering the surface of the eyeball that helps to direct and focus incoming light. This light is then channeled toward the pupil, an adjustable opening whose size is controlled by the iris. The iris, a pigmented muscle, regulates the amount of light entering the eye by contracting or dilating the pupil, thereby ensuring optimal light levels for clear vision.
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by

Same author

Similarity-driven compression during encoding supports biased but more precise working memory.

Journal of vision·2026

Same author

Training Under Attentional Competition Produces Persistent Biases in Visual Appearance.

ArXiv·2026

Same author

A 2D Gabor-wavelet baseline model out-performs a 3D surface model in scene-responsive cortex.

PLoS computational biology·2026

Same author

Memory recall errors reflect interacting sensory and mnemonic representations.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025

Same author

Sensory reformatting for a working visual memory.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2025

Same author

Distributed and drifting signals for working memory load in human cortex.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Spatial attention improves the quality of population codes in human visual cortex.

Sameer Saproo¹, John T Serences

¹Perception and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology and Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0109, USA. ssaproo@ucsd.edu

Journal of Neurophysiology

|May 21, 2010

Summary

Spatial attention enhances sensory processing by scaling neural responses in the brain. This scaling improves the precision of neural population codes, leading to faster and more accurate perception.

More Related Videos

Topographical Estimation of Visual Population Receptive Fields by fMRI

Topographical Estimation of Visual Population Receptive Fields by fMRI

Published on: February 3, 2015

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the Visual Cortex with Wide-View Retinotopic Stimulation

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the Visual Cortex with Wide-View Retinotopic Stimulation

Published on: December 8, 2023

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Topographical Estimation of Visual Population Receptive Fields by fMRI

Topographical Estimation of Visual Population Receptive Fields by fMRI

Published on: February 3, 2015

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the Visual Cortex with Wide-View Retinotopic Stimulation

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the Visual Cortex with Wide-View Retinotopic Stimulation

Published on: December 8, 2023

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Visual Perception

Background:

Selective attention prioritizes behaviorally relevant stimuli for detailed processing.
Attention modulates individual neuron activity, but its effect on population codes and encoding precision is less understood.
Forming stable object representations requires the combined output of many neurons.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between attentional modulation of population responses and improved encoding precision.
To determine the neural mechanisms underlying attention-driven enhancements in visual information processing.

Main Methods:

Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in human participants.
Employed voxel-based feature tuning functions to analyze neural responses.
Measured mutual information between population responses and stimulus orientation.

Main Results:

Spatial attention induced a multiplicative scaling of orientation-selective population response profiles in early visual cortex.
This multiplicative scaling correlated with enhanced encoding precision.
Mutual information between population responses and stimulus orientation increased with attention.

Conclusions:

Multiplicative scaling of neural responses is a key mechanism by which spatial attention improves population code precision.
Enhanced encoding precision in early visual areas may facilitate faster and more accurate perceptual decisions.
Findings elucidate how attention optimizes neural representations for behaviorally relevant information.