Preparatory attentional templates in prefrontal and sensory cortex encode target-associated information.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroimaging
• Visual Perception

Background:

• Visual search relies on working memory to guide attention and decisions.
• The 'target template' in the inferior frontal junction (IFJ)-visual attentional network typically uses exact target features.
• Behavioral studies suggest associated information can also guide attention, but neural evidence was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if target-associated information is explicitly represented in the brain before visual search.
• To demonstrate preparatory activation of associated information within the IFJ-visual attentional network.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern analysis.
• Participants learned face-scene category pairings.
• A cued visual search task for a face was employed.

Main Results:

• Face information was decoded in visual processing areas during the cue period.
• Associated scene information was decoded in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during the cue period.
• Crucially, associated scene information was decoded in the IFJ and parahippocampal place area during the delay period.

Conclusions:

• This study provides novel evidence for the preparatory activation of target-associated information in memory.
• Associated information can be represented in the brain's 'target template' in anticipation of visual search.
• This challenges the notion that only veridical target features form the attentional template.