Behavioural and neural effects of eccentricity and visual field during covert visuospatial attention

The attentional priority map plays a key role in the distribution of attention, and is modulated by bottom-up sensory as well as top-down task-dependent factors. The intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is a key candidate to hold a neural representation of the attentional priority map. In the current study, we examined the role of the IPS during covert attention to spatial locations with high or low eccentricity in one or both visual hemifields. To this end, eighteen neurologically healthy participants performed a cued letter discrimination task in which they were endogenously cued to attend to a location at a 5 or 10° eccentricity in the left and/or right visual field. We briefly presented a four-letter target array and subsequently probed perceptual performance while acquiring event-related functional MRI data. While behavioural results showed greater letter discrimination performance at the low eccentricity compared to the high eccentricity location, no neural effect of eccentricity was observed. The results further showed that attending to one visual hemifield produced higher activation in the left parietal and occipital cortex compared to attending bilaterally. Future studies may consider increasing the involvement of top-down control of attention to the cued location to study the neural effect of eccentricity, e.g., through manipulating the task difficulty.