Characterizing the Determinants of Goal-Driven Attentional Control

人类每时每刻接收到的视觉信息远远超过了他们可能处理的信息。一个主要的问题是人们如何关注与他们当前目标最相关的信息，而忽略分散注意力的、不相关的信息。一种策略是，人们把注意力集中在物体的特定属性上，比如颜色、形状或位置。然而，先前的研究表明，人们并不总是以最佳方式控制自己的注意力。此外，人们对控制注意力的动机知之甚少。目前的项目将研究可能影响注意力控制方式的三个因素的作用：1)性能最大化（尽快实现目标的动力）；2)努力最小化（避免费力的任务）；3)追求新奇（探索环境中的新刺激）。使用一种新的方法来测量这三个因素，研究小组将建立每个人独特的“注意力控制档案”。对个人注意力控制策略的优缺点进行详细分析，可能对筛选和培训严重依赖注意力控制的职业的员工（如司机、保安人员和空中交通管制员）具有重要意义。注意控制概况也可能有助于评估特殊人群的注意控制缺陷，例如患有注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）、精神分裂症或前额或顶叶脑区损伤的个体。除了更广泛的科学贡献外，该项目还将为俄亥俄州立大学的本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员提供培训，重点是包括女性和来自科学界代表性不足群体的成员。这个项目结合了行为和眼动追踪的方法，为每个参与者制定了一个注意力控制档案，使用一个新的视觉搜索任务，旨在重现现实世界搜索的基本方面。该任务允许个体在多种不同的注意控制策略中自由选择，以便在多个可能的搜索目标中找到一个。此外，该任务的特点是搜索显示随着时间的推移而不断变化，这将促使个人动态调整他们的控制策略。研究人员将探讨个体如何有效地选择搜索目标，调整他们的控制策略以适应不断变化的环境，并忽略无关信息。反过来，这将为每个人的注意力控制在多大程度上受到表现最大化、努力最小化和追求新奇的影响提供一个衡量标准。该项目还探索了注意力控制中个体差异的潜在来源，通过检查个体的策略是否取决于动机状态（例如，当快速表现获得高奖励时）或特定的人格特征（例如，冲动或深思熟虑）。这些方法将使研究人员能够提供一种工具来测量个性化的注意力控制概况，并将有助于解开使用不同注意力控制策略的动机。

Humans receive far more visual information in each moment than they can possibly process. A major question is how people attend to the information that is most relevant to their current goals and ignore distracting, irrelevant information. One strategy is that people focus their attention on specific properties of objects, such as their color, shape, or location. However, previous research has shown that people do not always control their attention in an optimal way. Additionally, little is known about the factors motivating how people choose to control their attention. The current project will investigate the role of three factors that may influence how attention is controlled: 1) performance maximization (the drive to achieve a goal as quickly as possible); 2) effort minimization (avoiding tasks that are cognitively taxing); and 3) novelty-seeking (exploring new stimuli in the environment). Using a new method to measure all three of these factors, the research team will establish each individual's unique "Attention Control Profile." Providing a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of an individual's attentional control strategies may have important implications for screening and training employees in professions that depend heavily on attentional control, such as drivers, security agents, and air traffic controllers. The Attention Control Profile may also be helpful for assessing attentional control deficits in special populations, such as individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, or damage to frontal or parietal brain regions. In addition to the broader scientific contributions, this project will provide training to undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers at The Ohio State University, with an emphasis on including women and members from groups underrepresented in science. This project uses a combination of behavioral and eye-tracking measures to develop an Attention Control Profile for each participating individual, using a new visual search task that is designed to reproduce essential aspects of real-world search. The task allows individuals to choose freely among multiple different attentional control strategies, in order to find one of multiple possible search targets. Additionally, the task features a search display that varies continuously over time, which will prompt individuals to adjust their control strategies dynamically. The investigators will explore how effectively individuals choose search targets, adapt their control strategies to the changing environment, and ignore irrelevant information. This will, in turn, provide a metric for how much each individual's attentional control is influenced by performance maximization, effort minimization and novelty-seeking. The project also explores the underlying sources of individual variation in attentional control, by examining whether an individual's strategy depends on motivational state (e.g., when fast performance receives high rewards) or specific personality traits (e.g., impulsivity or deliberateness). These methods will enable the researchers to provide a tool for measuring individualized attentional control profiles and will help unpack the motivations underlying the use of different attentional control strategies.