UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: The Guiding Principle of Attentional Allocation

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Attention is a central process in cognition. When people search through the environment for information relevant to their current goal, they are selectively processing perceptual information. Crucial to our understanding of attentional selection is determining what guides this selection. Until recently it has been observed that spatial locations are important for attentional guidance. However, recent evidence suggests that under some circumstances objects, not spatial locations, guide attentional selection. The full understanding of why under some circumstances such guidance is possible has remained elusive. This program of research introduces and tests a new unifying framework, uncertainty reduction, within which to examine factors that influence object-based attentional guidance. The generality of this framework is investigated, in several different paradigms, by systematically testing its predictive powers in two domains of uncertainty: internal uncertainty reduction as manipulated by reward and external uncertainty reduction as manipulated by varying the scope of attentional set. In order to understand uncertainty reduction and its effects on object-based attentional guidance, behavioral profiles as well as the neural underpinnings of this mechanism are examined. Whether reading a book in the peace and quiet of your living room or driving a car in traffic, the ability to pay attention to important aspects of the environment is an integral part of our lives and, ultimately, is crucial to our success and survival. A better understanding of critical factors that determine how attentional selection is deployed is important to diverse fields such as the design of interactive and ergonomic panels and enhanced training programs across multiple industries, ranging from training drivers and machine operators to security personnel (e.g., airport baggage screeners) to neurologists reading X-rays for evidence of cancer.