UC San Diego

Attention—the process of selecting and prioritizing relevant stimuli in our environment—has long been considered a highly important cognitive process that enables us to deal with the large volume of information that we encounter at any moment. While we still do not have a complete understanding of the mechanisms that guide selection, different theories have carved out how attention might function with respect to distinct stimulus domains, namely spatial locations, bound objects, or basic visual features. A large body of research has emerged that investigates the behavioral implications of attentional selection within these domains, as well as the neural processes that underlie this selection. To extend upon this work, in this dissertation I present a series of studies exploring fundamental aspects of feature-based attention: how attention spreads between different features within a single object, as well as globally across locations in the visual field; how broader and narrower ranges of relevant colors can be attended simultaneously and efficiently; how attention warps the perception of colors in service of efficient processing, and; how information about target and distractor colors are carried within a neural marker of visual processing, and how representations of those colors are affected by attention. In each of these studies, I tie the main findings back to broader theories connecting feature-based attention with object-based and spatial theories of attention. By considering how these theories interact and make claims about the nature of attentional selection, I argue for a framework in which attention is thought of as a process by which the representational content of information is shaped in support of adaptive behavior, as opposed to a mechanism which highlights particular types of stimuli.