Data for: Probing visual sensitivity and attention in mice using reverse correlation

Visual attention allows the brain to evoke behaviors based on the most
important visual features. Mouse models offer immense potential to gain a
circuit-level understanding of this phenomenon, yet, how mice distribute
attention across features and locations is not well understood. Here, we
describe a new approach to address this limitation, by training mice to
detect weak vertical bars in a background of checkerboard noise while
spatial cues manipulated their attention. By adapting a reverse
correlation method from human studies, we linked behavioral decisions to
stimulus features and locations. We show that mice voluntarily deploy
attention to a small rostral region of the visual field. Within this
region, mice attended to multiple features (orientation, spatial
frequency, contrast) that indicated the presence of weak vertical bars.
This attentional tuning grew with training, multiplicatively scaled
behavioral sensitivity, approached that of an ideal observer, and
resembled the effects of attention in humans. Taken together, we
demonstrate that mice can simultaneously attend to multiple features and
locations of a visual stimulus.