in the visual field there is some competition occurring; competition for representation, analysis, and behavior. This suggests that attention to stimuli makes more demands on processing capacity than unattended stimuli. This idea of competition led researchers to develop a new theory of attention, which they termed the “biased competition theory". The theory attempts to provide an explanation of the processes leading visual attention and their effects on the brain's neural systems. Function Biased competition serves to prioritize task relevant information to make visual search more efficient. A large amount of visual information is taken in at any given moment and there is a limited capacity available for processing. The visual system therefore needs a way to select relevant information and ignore irrelevant stimuli. A visual search usually has a target (e.g. a coffee cup), which is being searched for (task relevant) in the visual environment, and task irrelevant information is ignored. The biasing from neural mechanisms guides the search to logical spatial locations (e.g. the table) and items that have similar semantic or visual features to the item that is being searched for. It has been suggested that more than 30 cortical areas in the visual system are used for the processing of visual stimuli, and that there is competition from objects in the visual field that takes place in multiple areas of this extensive network. The Biased Competition Model Desimone suggested that the Biased Competition Model comprised five main tenets: Objects presented simultaneously in the visual field compete for cell responses in the visual cortex. When two stimuli are presented at the same time they will activate their neuronal representations. The responses will be determined by these two stimuli interacting in a competitive manner. Two stimuli that activate cells in the same area of the cortex will provide the strongest competitive interactions. Competitive interactions have the ability to be biased in preference of one stimulus due to many different neural mechanisms. This is called feedback bias. These may include Top-down feedback (for example, one stimulus may hold more situational relevance) or Bottom-up influences (for example, one stimulus is more novel than another). Feedback biasing is not purely the result of spatial location. Biasing during processing can be due to a stimuli possessing specific, relevant feature. Such features may include color, texture, and shape. A main source of Top-down biasing derives from the structures in the brain involved with working