Figure 4.
Voluntary attention as a limited but recoverable resource. a) Schematic showing the recovery of the input drive to VA, which determined the amplitude of voluntary attentional gain. If maximum voluntary attention was allocated at one moment in time, none was available at the next moment. The available attention then recovered linearly with time, with full recovery at time tR. b) Voluntary attentional control input (y) for different precue types and SOAs. When the SOA was short, large attentional tradeoffs between targets occurred due to the limited availability of voluntary attention. When the SOA was long, attention could be allocated maximally to both targets. Voluntary attentional control input was timed, via fitted parameters, to overlap with the sensory responses to each target. In this schematic, equal attention was allocated to T1 and T2 in the neutral condition.