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Updated: Feb 13, 2026
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Functional interplay of top-down attention with affective codes during visual short-term memory maintenance.
Bo-Cheng Kuo1, Szu-Hung Lin1, Yei-Yu Yeh1
1Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Summary
Top-down attention enhances visual short-term memory (VSTM) for threatening items by modulating neural activity. This study reveals how the brain prioritizes emotional content in VSTM.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroimaging
Background:
- Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is crucial for guiding behavior.
- Emotional content, particularly threat, can influence VSTM processing.
- Top-down attention mechanisms may interact with affective codes in VSTM.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms of top-down attention interacting with affective codes in VSTM.
- To examine how attention modulates the processing of threatening versus neutral stimuli in VSTM.
- To explore functional connectivity changes related to emotional VSTM regulation.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed.
- Participants performed a cued VSTM task involving threatening and neutral objects.
- Retrospective cues (retro-cues) directed attention to specific object locations.
- Multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) was used to decode neural patterns.
Main Results:
- Attending to threatening stimuli in VSTM elicited stronger activity in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex and amygdala compared to neutral stimuli.
- MVPA showed better classification of attended threatening versus neutral objects in early visual areas and the amygdala.
- Retro-cues modulated functional connectivity between frontoparietal attention networks and early visual areas (V3a-V4).
Conclusions:
- Top-down attention modulates activation patterns in early visual areas for regulating threatening representations in VSTM.
- Functional connectivity between frontoparietal networks and visual areas is dynamically altered to prioritize threat-related information.
- These findings demonstrate a neural mechanism for attentional control over emotional content during VSTM maintenance.
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