The spatially global control of attentional target selection in visual search
The spatially global control of attentional target selection in visual search
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DOI：
10.1080/13506285.2017.1287806
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发表时间：
2017-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Eimer, Martin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berggren, Nick;Jenkins, Michael;Eimer, Martin
格林·汉弗莱斯和他的同事们对视觉搜索的研究做出了许多重要的理论和实证贡献。他们引入了注意目标模板的概念，并研究了这些模板的性质以及它们如何参与搜索绩效的控制。在本文报道的实验中，我们研究了特定颜色的特定特征搜索模板是否可以独立地指导视觉空间不同区域的目标选择。我们在目标由特定颜色/位置组合定义的任务中使用了注意选择的行为和电生理标记物。在实验1中，参与者搜索特定空间构型的彩色目标对(例如，上部为红色，下部视野为蓝色)。在实验2中，他们在特定的位置(例如，左边的红色或右边的蓝色)搜索单一的颜色定义的目标。在目标显示之前，在任务集匹配或不匹配位置处包含目标颜色项的非信息性提示。只有在匹配线索的情况下才能观察到偶然注意捕获。然而，匹配和不匹配的线索都会引起相同的N2pc成分，这表明等同的注意力捕获。这表明，对目标特征的注意力的快速分配在空间上是非选择性的，颜色/位置组合的选择发生在知觉后阶段的后期。这一点在搜索显示中得到了进一步证实，在搜索显示中，目标在不匹配的位置伴随着目标颜色干扰物。在这里，对目标的空间偏差出现得较晚，相对于没有这种干扰的显示器，空间偏差得到了强烈的减弱。这些结果表明，目标定义特征的注意模板以空间-全局的方式工作。视觉搜索的基于特征的指导不能被限制在特定的位置，即使这是注意选择任务的要求。
Glyn Humphreys and his co-workers have made numerous important theoretical and empirical contributions to research on visual search. They have introduced the concept of attentional target templates and investigated the nature of these templates and how they are involved in the control of search performance. In the experiments reported here, we investigated whether feature-specific search templates for particular colours can guide target selection independently for different regions of visual space. We employed behavioural and electrophysiological markers of attentional selection in tasks with targets defined by specific colour/location combinations. In Experiment 1, participants searched for pairs of colour targets in a particular spatial configuration (e.g., red in the upper and blue in the lower visual field). In Experiment 2, they searched for single colour-defined targets at specific locations (e.g., red on the left or blue on the right). Target displays were preceded by non-informative cues containing target-colour items at taskset matching or mismatching locations. Contingent attentional capture was observed only for matching cues. However, both matching and mismatching cues elicited identical N2pc components, indicating equivalent attentional capture. This shows that the rapid deployment of attention towards target features is spatially non-selective, and that selection of colour/location combinations occurs at later post-perceptual stages. This was further corroborated in search displays where targets were accompanied by target-colour distractors at nonmatching locations. Here, spatial biases towards the target emerged late and were strongly attenuated relative to displays without such distractors. These results demonstrate that attentional templates for target-defining features operate in a spatially-global fashion. Feature-based guidance of visual search cannot be restricted to particular locations even when this is required by the demands of an attentional selection task.