The primate cortex represents the external world in a distributed fashion, which calls for a mechanism that integrates and binds the features of a perceived or processed event. Animal and patients studies provide evidence that feature binding in the visual cortex is driven by the muscarinic–cholinergic system, whereas visuo-motor integration may be under dopaminergic control. Consistent with this scenario, we present indication that the binding of visual and action features is modulated by emotions through the probable stimulation of the dopaminergic system. Interestingly, the impact of emotions on binding was restricted to tasks in which shape was task-relevant, suggesting that extracting affective information is not automatic but requires attention to shape. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract not found

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ynimg Enhancing cognitive control through neurofeedback: A role of gamma-band activity

Given the distributed representation of visual features in the human brain, binding mechanisms are necessary to integrate visual information about the same perceptual event. It has been assumed that feature codes are bound into object files—pointers to the neural codes of the features of a given event. The present study investigated the perceptual criteria underlying integration into an object file. Previous studies confounded the sharing of spatial location with belongingness to the same perceptual object, 2 factors we tried to disentangle. Our findings suggest that orientation and color features appearing in a task-irrelevant preview display were integrated irrespective of whether they appeared as part of the same object or of different objects (e.g., 1 stationary and the other moving continuously, or a banana in a particular orientation overlaying an apple of a particular color). In contrast, integration was markedly reduced when the 2 objects were separated in space. Taken together, these findings suggest that spatial overlap of visual features is a sufficient criterion for integrating them into the same object file. Keywords: Visual information processing occurs in a distributed fashion— different features of a visual object are processed in spatially and functionally distinct cortical areas (Zeki, 1976). Given that event

Given the distributed representation of visual features in the human brain, binding mechanisms are necessary to integrate visual information about the same perceptual event. It has been assumed that feature codes are bound into object files—pointers to the neural codes of the features of a given event. The present study investigated the perceptual criteria underlying integration into an object file. Previous studies confounded the sharing of spatial location with belongingness to the same perceptual object, two factors we tried to disentangle. Our findings suggest that orientation and color features appearing in a task-irrelevant preview display were integrated irrespective of whether they appeared as part of the same object or of different objects (e.g., one stationary and the other moving continuously, or a banana in a particular orientation overlaying an apple of a particular color). In contrast, integration was markedly reduced when the two objects were separated in space. Taken altogether, these findings suggest that spatial overlap of visual features is a sufficient criterion for integrating them into the same object file. Object specificity of object files-- 3 Visual information processing occurs in a distributed fashion–different features of a visual object are processed in spatially and functionally distinct cortical areas (Zeki, 1976). Given that event

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00100 Negative emotion does not modulate rapid feature integration effects