Fig. 3.

Attention directed to one of two overlapping figures. First column: Sensory input and attentional modulation, same format as Fig. 2. Columns 2–4: Activity of grouping cells of different scales. Column 5: Vector field of border ownership cell activity where each border ownership cell is assigned a vector in the direction of the preferred figure side with a magnitude equal to its firing rate. At each location the vectors for all border ownership cells at this location are summed. In the absence of attention (Top row) or when attention is directed to the foreground (Middle row), the edge between the figures is correctly assigned to the foreground figure. If attention is directed toward the background figure (Bottom row), the border ownership signal of this edge is strongly reduced, to values consistent with experimental observations (10).