Brain and Cognitive Mechanisms of Top–Down Attentional Control in a Multisensory World: Benefits of Electrical Neuroimaging

In real-world environments, information is typically multisensory, and objects are a primary unit of information processing. Object recognition and action necessitate attentional selection of task-relevant from among task-irrelevant objects. However, the brain and cognitive mechanisms governing these processes remain not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that attentional selection of visual objects is controlled by integrated top–down audiovisual object representations (“attentional templates”) while revealing a new brain mechanism through which they can operate. In multistimulus (visual) arrays, attentional selection of objects in humans and animal models is traditionally quantified via “the N2pc component”: spatially selective enhancements of neural processing of objects within ventral visual cortices at approximately 150–300 msec poststimulus. In our adaptation of Folk et al.'s [Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Johnston, J. C. Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settin...