UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: The Guiding Principle of Attentional Allocation

注意是认知的一个中心过程。当人们在环境中寻找与他们当前目标相关的信息时，他们正在选择性地处理感知信息。我们理解注意力选择的关键是确定是什么引导了这种选择。直到最近，人们才发现空间位置对于注意力引导是很重要的。然而，最近的证据表明，在某些情况下，对象，而不是空间位置，引导注意力选择。对于为什么在某些情况下这种指导是可能的，仍然没有充分的理解。该研究计划介绍并测试了一个新的统一框架，减少不确定性，在其中检查影响基于对象的注意力指导的因素。这个框架的一般性进行了研究，在几个不同的范式，通过系统地测试其预测能力在两个领域的不确定性：内部的不确定性减少操纵奖励和外部的不确定性减少操纵的注意力集中的范围。 为了理解不确定性减少及其对基于对象的注意引导的影响，行为配置文件以及这种机制的神经基础进行了检查。 无论是在安静的客厅里阅读一本书，还是在交通中开车，关注环境重要方面的能力是我们生活中不可或缺的一部分，最终对我们的成功和生存至关重要。更好地理解决定注意力选择如何部署的关键因素对不同领域非常重要，例如交互式和人体工程学面板的设计以及跨多个行业的增强培训计划，从培训驾驶员和机器操作员到安全人员（例如，从机场行李检查员）到神经科医生阅读X光片以寻找癌症的证据。

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.