Investigating the relationship between attention and consciousness

在今年的研究中，我们利用了变化盲视的情况；这个实验范例以其惊人的困难而闻名，因为它很难发现一个一旦被注意到就变得如此明显的变化。这种变化是在闪烁或眼球运动时进行的，以抑制局部变化信号。在我们的研究中，使用了闪烁范式，其中12只动物被放置在一个想象的圆圈周围重复闪烁。在圆圈的中心，假名字母快速地连续出现。受试者的任务是阅读嵌入假名字母中的字母。由于该任务的高变化率（90 ms /字母），要求受试者高度集中注意力，因此对其他任务的注意能力很少。变更检测是一项附属任务。因此，受试者被要求阅读中心字母，同时检测外围字母的变化。尽管在自然场景中检测变化是众所周知的困难，但在本实验的简化条件下，受试者能够以很高的准确性检测到变化。这一发现表明，变化盲视并不是普遍存在的。它只发生在没有预先注意的变化信号可用的特殊情况下。变化信号本身会自动导致有意识的检测，而不需要注意它。

In this year s research, we took advantage of the change-blindness situation; This experimental paradigm is well-known for its amazing difficulty in detecting a change that becomes so obvious after once having been noticed. The change is made during a flicker or an eye movement to suppress local change signal. In our research, the flicker paradigm was used) in which 12 animals positioned around an imaginary circle flickered repetitively. At the center of the circle Kana letters were presented in rapid succession. Subject' s task was to read an alphabet letter embedded in Kana letters. Due to high rate of alteration (90 ms / letter), the task demanded high concentration in subject, thus sparing little attentional capacity for other task. The change detection was a subsidiary task. Thus, subject was required to read a central letter and at the same time detect a change that occurred in the periphery. In spite of the well-known difficulty in detecting a change when it occurred in a naturalistic scene, in a simplified condition of the present experiment, subject was able to detect it with high accuracy. This finding suggests that the change blindness does not occur ubiquitously. It only occurs in a special condition in which no preattentive change signals are available. The change signal itself automatically leads to conscious detection without attention being directed to it.