Figure 3.

Impairment of Neural Discrimination by Attentional Competition

Neural discrimination between critical T/N pairs presented either alone (blue) or accompanied by a nontarget in the opposite hemifield (orange), plotted as a function of time from choice stimulus onset. Discrimination is measured by Euclidean distance between activity vectors in a selected cell population, after subtraction of distance expected by chance (permutation correction; see Experimental Procedures). Discrimination significantly greater than zero (p < 0.05, blue and orange) and significant differences between single- and two-object displays (p < 0.05, light gray; p < 0.01, dark gray) are shown by lines at bottom. Top left: discrimination of T_con versus NI_con, presented alone (blue) or accompanied by NC_ips (orange). Bottom left: discrimination of T_con versus NC_con, presented alone (blue) or accompanied by NI_ips (orange). Top right: discrimination of T_ips versus NI_ips, presented alone (blue) or accompanied by NC_con (orange). Bottom right: discrimination of T_ips versus NC_ips, presented alone (blue) or accompanied by NI_con (orange). n indicates number of cells in each analysis.