Independent effects of motivation and spatial attention in the human visual cortex

Mareike Bayer, Valentina Rossi, Naomi Vanlessen, Annika Grass, Annekathrin Schacht, Gilles Pourtois
2016 Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience  
Motivation and attention constitute major determinants of human perception and action. Nonetheless, it remains a matter of debate whether motivation effects on the visual cortex depend on the spatial attention system, or rely on independent pathways. This study investigated the impact of motivation and spatial attention on the activity of the human primary and extrastriate visual cortex by employing a factorial manipulation of the two factors in a cued pattern discrimination task. During
more » ... s presentation, we recorded event-related potentials and pupillary responses. Motivational relevance increased the amplitudes of the C1 component at $70 ms after stimulus onset. This modulation occurred independently of spatial attention effects, which were evident at the P1 level. Furthermore, motivation and spatial attention had independent effects on preparatory activation as measured by the contingent negative variation; and pupil data showed increased activation in response to incentive targets. Taken together, these findings suggest independent pathways for the influence of motivation and spatial attention on the activity of the human visual cortex.
doi:10.1093/scan/nsw162 pmid:28031455 pmcid:PMC5390750 fatcat:hdaex6xw35b3zckz6ahhx7bn7y