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Science 15 April 1988:
Vol. 240. no. 4850, pp. 338 - 340
DOI: 10.1126/science.3353728
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Articles

Science, Vol 240, Issue 4850, 338-340
Copyright © 1988 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

articles

Increased attention enhances both behavioral and neuronal performance

H Spitzer, R Desimone, and J Moran

Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.

Single cells were recorded from cortical area V4 of two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) trained on a visual discrimination task with two levels of difficulty. Behavioral evidence indicated that the monkeys' discriminative abilities improved when the task was made more difficult. Correspondingly, neuronal responses to stimuli became larger and more selective in the difficult task. A control experiment demonstrated that changes in general arousal could not account for the effects of task difficulty on neuronal responses. It is concluded that increasing the amount of attention directed toward a stimulus can enhance the responsiveness and selectivity of the neurons that process it.


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