ABSTRACT

The sensory systems supply the information that is used to build a representation of our external world. However, the amount of information provided by highly evolved sensors such as the eyes of higher animals, exceeds the nervous system's capacity. Attention serves as one of the main selection mechanisms that allows these animals and humans to concentrate processing resources on the most relevant information. Here we review selected findings and present some of our own data in macaques about how this selection process effectively and often without the individual's awareness prevents irrelevant information from reaching later stages of processing.