Assessing Connectivity Between Brain Regions During Object Category-Tuned Attention and Spatial Distraction
Bibliographic record
Abstract
To prioritize goal-relevant visual information, our brain is able to filter out less relevant visual input. Specific object categories, such as faces and scenes, are processed by specific regions in the brain. These brain areas can act as attentional filters biased toward processing object category information relevant to our goals. In our everyday life, there are distractions that can capture our spatial attention. What happens to these category-tuned attentional filters when we get distracted? A recent fMRI study by (Dube et al., 2022), investigated the effects that visual distraction has on category-tuned filters in the ventral visual cortex (Fusiform Face Area [FFA] and Parahippocampal Place Area [PPA]) and discovered a novel consequence of distraction on these filters which regulate category-specific object processing. Participants in this study viewed hybrid face/house images and were told to attend to either faces or houses. The presence of a salient distractor disrupts these filters, such that our brain incidentally processes the goal-irrelevant category more than during distractor-absent trials. However, it is still unclear which brain areas may be modulating this filter disruption. To learn more about the neural pathways implicated in this filter disruption, here we expand on the previous study by conducting functional connectivity analyses among particular brain regions during distractor-present versus distractor-absent trials. We compared connectivity between the category-tuned areas (FFA or PPA) and the early visual cortex (EVC) showing that in the absence of a distractor, task-relevant category-tuned areas have significantly higher connectivity with the EVC during their attend-preferred conditions (e.g. FFA-EVC during attend-face). In the presence of a distractor, we observe some differences in connectivity patterns between the category-tuned areas, EVC, and fronto-parietal attentional control regions. These results suggest that connectivity patterns with the early visual cortex may inform us about the mechanism underlying category-selective attentional filter disruption.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".