The following is a summary of “Space- and feature-based attention operate both independently and interactively within latent components of perceptual decision making,” published in the January 2023 issue of Ophthalmology by Liang, et al.

Top-down visual attention filters unwanted inputs, whereas only a small portion of the brain’s cognitive resources are given to the most important information. It was possible to use many selection processes at once, but it was yet unknown how their individual impacts combined to influence behavior. 

In the past, when both space-based attention (SBA) and feature-based attention (FBA) were cued in a sparse display, researchers were unable to detect an additive perceptual benefit: FBA was limited to higher-order decision-making processes when combined with a valid spatial cue, whereas SBA also facilitated target enhancement. In the study, they made several design changes across three trials to elicit both attention processes inside signal enhancement and also investigate the consequences on decision-making. 

First, they discovered that both processes were used separately to resolve the target in tests where highly reliable spatial and feature cues provided distinct contributions to search (experiment 1) or in studies where each cue component was only moderately trustworthy (experiments 2a and 2b). The same changes, however, resulted in interactive attention effects in other latent decision-making parts that were dependent on the likelihood of the integrated cueing object. For the most likely pre-cue combination—even when it had an incorrect component—the time before evidence accumulation was shortened, and responses were more cautious. The findings suggested that while higher-order dependencies emerged outside of signal amplification, selection processes always acted independently on sensory inputs.

Reference: jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2785298