The cost of attentional reorienting on conscious visual perception: an MEG study

How do attentional networks influence conscious perception? To answer this question, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) in human participants, and assessed the effects of spatially nonpredictive or predictive supra-threshold peripheral cues on the conscious perception of near-threshold Gabors. Three main results emerged. (1) As compared with invalid cues, both nonpredictive and predictive valid cues increased conscious detection. Yet, only predictive cues shifted the response criterion towards a more liberal decision (i.e., willingness to report the presence of a target under conditions of greater perceptual uncertainty) and affected target contrast leading to 50% detections. (2) Conscious perception following valid predictive cues was associated to enhanced activity in frontoparietal networks. These responses were lateralized to the left hemisphere during attentional orienting, and to the right hemisphere during target processing. The involvement of frontoparietal networks occurred earlier in valid than in invalid trials, a possible neural marker of the cost of re-orienting attention. (3) When detected targets were preceded by invalid predictive cues, and thus reorienting to the target was required, neural responses occurred in left hemisphere temporo-occipital regions during attentional orienting, and in right hemisphere anterior insular and temporo-occipital regions during target processing. These results confirm and specify the role of frontoparietal networks in modulating conscious processing, and detail how invalid orienting of spatial attention disrupts conscious processing.Significance StatementDo we need to pay attention to external objects in order to become aware of them? Characterizing the spatiotemporal dynamics of attentional effects on visual perception is critical to understand how humans process and select relevant information. Participants detected near-threshold visual targets preceded by supra-threshold spatial cues with varying degrees of predictivity, while their brain activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography. Results demonstrated that valid predictive cues biased participants’ conscious perception through an early recruitment of frontoparietal regions, and that attentional costs associated to invalid predictive cues were related to activation of the right hemisphere ventral network. This work characterizes the neural dynamics associated with the cost of attentional reorienting on conscious processing.