Parallel fast and slow recurrent cortical processing mediates target and distractor selection in visual search

Visual search has been commonly used to study the neural correlates of attentional allocation in space. Recent electrophysiological research has disentangled distractor processing from target processing, showing that these mechanisms appear to operate in parallel and show electric fields of opposite polarity. Nevertheless, the localization and exact nature of this activity is unknown. Here, using MEG in humans, we provide a spatiotemporal characterization of target and distractor processing in visual cortex. We demonstrate that source activity underlying target- and distractor-processing propagates in parallel as fast and slow sweep from higher to lower hierarchical levels in visual cortex. Importantly, the fast propagating target-related source activity bypasses intermediate levels to go directly to V1, and this V1 activity correlates with behavioral performance. These findings suggest that reentrant processing is important for both selection and attenuation of stimuli, and such processing operates in parallel feedback loops.