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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 25, 2026

Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior

Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior

Published on: April 16, 2014

Shape effects on reflexive spatial attention are driven by the dorsal stream.

Stuart D Red¹, Saumil S Patel, Anne B Sereno

¹Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. stuart.d.red@uth.tmc.edu

Vision Research

|January 14, 2012

Summary

The dorsal visual stream, not the ventral stream, significantly drives shape effects in reflexive spatial attention. Greater shape dissimilarity in the dorsal stream (LIP) led to larger and more consistent attention effects.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Perception
Attention Studies

Background:

Reflexive spatial attention is modulated by stimulus properties like shape.
Distinct shape encoding exists in ventral and dorsal visual streams in monkeys.
The role of these distinct visual streams in human attention remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether ventral or dorsal visual stream encoding of shape influences the shape effect in reflexive spatial attention in humans.
To determine which visual stream is primarily responsible for shape-based modulations of attention.

Main Methods:

A modified reflexive spatial attention paradigm was used with varying cue and target shapes.
Cue-target shape pairs were selected based on differential encoding similarity in monkey dorsal (LIP) and ventral (AIT) streams.
The magnitude of the shape effect was measured across different cue-to-target onset asynchronies (CTOA).

Main Results:

Shape effects were larger and more consistent when cue and target shapes had greater encoding dissimilarity in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area (dorsal stream).
Shape effects were smaller and inconsistent when cue and target shapes had greater encoding dissimilarity in the anterior inferotemporal cortex (AIT) (ventral stream).
These results held up to a CTOA of 450 ms.

Conclusions:

Shape effects in reflexive spatial attention are predominantly driven by shape processing within the dorsal visual stream.
The findings suggest a functional specialization where the dorsal stream plays a key role in guiding attention based on shape differences.