Predictive Cues and Multiple Fixation Search

预测线索和多重注视搜索

• 批准号: 0819592
• 负责人: Miguel Eckstein
• 金额: $ 29.7万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0819592&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Predictive; Cues; Multiple; Fixation; Search

Human visual search involves scrutinizing the visual scene by making eye movements to orient the center of the eye, the fovea, to regions of interest. The high resolution of the fovea allows for processing of the visual world with finer detail. In addition, visual search also involves attending to different points in the visual scene independent of the eye position. Visual search is also often facilitated when there are other objects (cues) that co-occur with the target of interest. When the target object appears at unexpected locations, people often have difficulty finding the target. Researchers have for decades studied how such predictive cues benefit human search performance in a variety of tasks. However, most of these studies were designed to prevent humans from making eye movements to study the mechanisms of covert visual attention in isolation. Little is known about the mechanisms by which cues and context aid search in natural behavior where people are free to move their eyes. In this proposal, the investigators seek to understand the mechanisms by which humans use cues and context to plan eye movements and covert attention to optimize visual search. They will develop mathematical models implemented on computers to mimic the processes by which the human brain mediates visual search. The research will allow for a better understanding of the mechanisms by which cues and context aid visual search and also predict the benefits in accuracy of perceptual judgments brought by the use of predictive cues in visual search. Looking for a friend in a crowd, a car in a parking lot, and your house keys in the living room are all examples of visual searches that humans do on a daily basis. The proposed research is a necessary step to understand human visual search in the natural environment. Visual search also include life-critical tasks such as finding a tumor in a medical image or a potentially dangerous object in a baggage x-ray. This research will also have the potential to provide insights into the efficiency in life-critical search tasks. Finally, the research can potentially contribute to better assessments of the expected deficits of patients with attentional disorders (e.g., hemi-neglect) in naturalistic search behavior. The work will integrate research and educational activities at all levels (high school interns, undergraduate, and graduate) through the development of a website that enables students and researchers worldwide to enter experimental data through an internet browser and test the various computer models.

人类的视觉搜索包括通过眼球运动来定位眼睛的中心，即中央凹，使其指向感兴趣的区域，从而仔细检查视觉场景。中央凹的高分辨率允许以更精细的细节处理视觉世界。此外，视觉搜索还包括关注视觉场景中独立于眼睛位置的不同点。当有其他物体（线索）与感兴趣的目标同时出现时，视觉搜索也会很容易。当目标物体出现在意想不到的位置时，人们往往很难找到目标。几十年来，研究人员一直在研究这些预测性线索如何在各种任务中有益于人类的搜索表现。然而，这些研究大多是为了防止人类进行眼球运动而设计的，以研究孤立的隐蔽视觉注意机制。在人们自由移动眼睛的自然行为中，线索和背景如何帮助搜索的机制尚不清楚。在这项提议中，研究人员试图了解人类利用线索和背景来计划眼球运动和隐蔽注意力以优化视觉搜索的机制。他们将开发在计算机上实现的数学模型，以模仿人脑调节视觉搜索的过程。这项研究将使我们更好地理解线索和背景如何帮助视觉搜索的机制，并预测在视觉搜索中使用预测性线索所带来的感知判断准确性的好处。在人群中寻找朋友，在停车场寻找汽车，在客厅寻找你家钥匙，这些都是人类日常生活中视觉搜索的例子。本研究是了解人类在自然环境下的视觉搜索的必要步骤。视觉搜索还包括生命攸关的任务，如在医学图像中发现肿瘤或在行李x光检查中发现潜在危险物体。这项研究也将有可能提供对生命至关重要的搜索任务的效率的见解。最后，该研究可能有助于更好地评估注意力障碍患者在自然搜索行为中的预期缺陷（例如，半忽视）。这项工作将整合各个层次（高中实习生、本科生和研究生）的研究和教育活动，通过开发一个网站，使世界各地的学生和研究人员能够通过互联网浏览器输入实验数据并测试各种计算机模型。