Attention as Gain Control

1. Attention as Gain Control Harriet Brown With 1 equation!

2. James (1890) “It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.”

3. James (1890) “It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.” Voluntary Enhances processing Selective

4. Voluntary and involuntary Enhances processing Selective Flexible Neurobiologically plausible Clear evolutionary motivation

5. Friston (2010) • “Attention is the optimisation of estimates of precision during hierarchical inference of the causes of sensory data.”

6. Low precision High precision The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

7. precision-weighted prediction error Forward prediction error Backward predictions

8. Attend RF, no drug Attend away, no drug Attend RF, scopolamine Attend away, scopolamine No drug Scopolamine Herrero et al. (2008)

9. Jensen, Kaiser & Lachaux (2007) Bauer et al. (2006)

10. Summary • Attention is the optimisation of estimates of precision during hierarchical inference of the causes of sensory data • (Mathematical) precision is (neurobiological) superficial pyramidal cell gain • SPC gain can be altered through long-range neurotransmitters or gamma-synchrony • Second-order predictions from higher hierarchical levels transmit top-down attentional effects

11. Posner Paradigm Invalid Cue Valid Cue Cue Target

12. 400 350 Reaction time (ms) 300 invalid neutral valid 250

13. vL vC vR + + + xL xR constant = = = yL yC yR

15. hidden states hidden causes 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 50 100 150 200 250 300 time (ms) time (ms)

16. hidden causes 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 time (ms)

17. Simulated results

18. High-level representation Task-relevance Attention Visual Salience Change Emotional Valence

19. target responses with valid and invalid cues Luck et al, (1997) Attendeffective Spike rate (Hz) 0 Ignore effective Peristimulus time (ms) 50 100 150 200 250 300 time (ms)

20. Itti & Baldi, 2009 Friston et al., 2012

21. Attended Response Unattended Time Attended Response Unattended Time

22. Cue Target

23. Voluntary and involuntary Enhances processing Selective Adaptable Neurobiologically plausible Clearly motivated

24. Thanks for listening!