%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
%D 9998
%T Object-based Selection of Irrelevant Features Is Not Confined to the Attended Object
%A Boehler C.N.  Hopf J.M., Schoenfeld Heinze
%U http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20666592
%X Attention to one feature of an object can bias the processing of   unattended features of that object. Here we demonstrate with ERPs in   visual search that this object-based bias for an irrelevant feature also  appears in an unattended object when it shares that feature with the   target object. Specifically, we show that the ERP response elicited by a  distractor object in one visual field is modulated as a function of   whether a task-irrelevant color of that distractor is also present in   the target object that is presented in the opposite visual field.   Importantly, we find this modulation to arise with a delay of   approximately 80 msec relative to the N2pc-a component of the ERP   response that reflects the focusing of attention onto the target. In a   second experiment, we demonstrate that this modulation reflects enhanced  neural processing in the unattended object. These observations together  facilitate the surprising conclusion that the object-based selection of  irrelevant features is spatially global even after attention has   selected the target object.