Search goal tunes visual features optimally.

@article{citeulike:1155476, abstract = {How does a visual search goal modulate the activity of neurons encoding different visual features (e.g., color, direction of motion)? Previous research suggests that goal-driven attention enhances the gain of neurons representing the target's visual features. Here, we present mathematical and behavioral evidence that this strategy is suboptimal and that humans do not deploy it. We formally derive the optimal feature gain modulation theory, which combines information from both the target and distracting clutter to maximize the relative salience of the target. We qualitatively validate the theory against existing electrophysiological and psychophysical literature. A surprising prediction is that it is sometimes optimal to enhance nontarget features. We provide experimental evidence toward this through psychophysics experiments on human subjects, thus suggesting that humans deploy the optimal gain modulation strategy.}, address = {Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.}, author = {Navalpakkam, V. and Itti, L. }, citeulike-article-id = {1155476}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2007.01.018}, issn = {0896-6273}, journal = {Neuron}, keywords = {attention, computational\_model, gain\_control, visual\_search}, month = {February}, number = {4}, pages = {605--617}, posted-at = {2007-08-24 16:33:37}, priority = {2}, title = {Search goal tunes visual features optimally.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2007.01.018}, volume = {53}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1155476 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1155476 TI - Search goal tunes visual features optimally. JF - Neuron VL - 53 IS - 4 SP - 605 EP - 617 AD - Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. SN - 0896-6273 N2 - How does a visual search goal modulate the activity of neurons encoding different visual features (e.g., color, direction of motion)? Previous research suggests that goal-driven attention enhances the gain of neurons representing the target's visual features. Here, we present mathematical and behavioral evidence that this strategy is suboptimal and that humans do not deploy it. We formally derive the optimal feature gain modulation theory, which combines information from both the target and distracting clutter to maximize the relative salience of the target. We qualitatively validate the theory against existing electrophysiological and psychophysical literature. A surprising prediction is that it is sometimes optimal to enhance nontarget features. We provide experimental evidence toward this through psychophysics experiments on human subjects, thus suggesting that humans deploy the optimal gain modulation strategy. KW - attention KW - computational_model KW - gain_control KW - visual_search AU - Navalpakkam, V AU - Itti, L PY - 2007/02/15/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2007.01.018 ER -