PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Denise Moerel AU - Anina N. Rich AU - Alexandra Woolgar TI - Selective attention and decision-making have separable neural bases in space and time AID - 10.1101/2021.02.28.433294 DP - 2021 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2021.02.28.433294 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/01/2021.02.28.433294.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/01/2021.02.28.433294.full AB - Attention and decision-making processes are fundamental to cognition. However, they are usually experimentally confounded, making it impossible to link neural observations to specific processes. Here we separated the effects of selective attention from the effects of decision-making in human observers using a two-stage task where the attended stimulus and decision were orthogonal and separated in time. Multivariate pattern analyses of multimodal neuroimaging data revealed the dynamics of perceptual and decision-related information coding through time (magnetoencephalography (MEG)), space (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)), and their combination (MEG-fMRI fusion). Our MEG results showed an effect of attention before decision-making could begin, and fMRI results showed an attention effect in early visual and frontoparietal regions. Model-based MEG-fMRI fusion suggested that attention boosted stimulus information in frontoparietal and early visual regions before decision-making was possible. Together, our results suggest that attention affects neural stimulus representations in frontoparietal regions independent of decision-making.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.