ADAPTIVE ATTENDING BEHAVIOR: MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN

描述：本提案旨在继续支持一项 一项研究探索了视觉结构与 智力迟钝和非智力迟钝个体的注意力功能。 由于多元素刺激阵列的基本属性本质上是 关系和嵌入在无处不在的环境背景下， 检测刺激间关系（如相似性/不相似性）的能力 对适应性注意功能至关重要 虽然孩子们 智力年龄低（包括智力迟钝和非智力迟钝的儿童） 通常表现出明显不足的表现， 关系的回应，目前的研究人员已经证明， 适当修改视觉阵列，旨在增加 相关刺激关系的知觉显著性，可以迅速 促进智障人士在此类活动中的表现， 实验背景。 根据所获得的关于 知觉结构对刺激检测的影响，研究人员是 现在建议将他们的方法扩展到几个新的范例，包括 (a)奇数和匹配样本方法的集成，以及（B） 智力迟钝者视觉处理能力的评估 在关键的前注意阶段。 这种基于感知的“前端” “引导”注意力的方法是基于已经被 在许多先前的研究中成功地使用，特别是目前的研究， investigators. 拟议的研究涉及审查一系列 共享共同感知变量的实验环境（例如，对称 和邻接性），并评估这些变量对 注意和前注意加工的个体， 智力迟钝。 预计拟议研究的结果将 通知应用和理论问题方面的注意力 智力迟钝者的功能。 拟议的实验包括一个奇怪的整合， 匹配样本方法（i. 例如，基于奇数的比较数组）， 广义性能的影响和扩展的范式， 匹配/奇性中集合大小和空间邻接性的研究 框架. 在匹配样本范例中，刺激变量包括 刺激结构、刺激模式对称性和元素相邻性 将调查和分析的关系，刺激 检查时间和刺激变量将进行。 实验 视觉搜索提出了解决刺激变量的元素 连续性和对称性，并随后进行调查的指导 搜索 其余的实验建议利用随机点运动图 以运动定义的形式评估刺激组织变量，以及 由于训练对检测和运动方向的影响， 歧视

DESCRIPTION: This proposal is for continued support for a program of research that has explored the relationship between visual structure and attentional functioning in mentally retarded and nonretarded individuals. Because basic properties of multi-element stimulus arrays are intrinsically relational and are embedded in ubiquitous environmental contexts, the ability to detect interstimulus relations like similarity/dissimilarity is essential for adaptive attentional functioning. Although children who have low mental ages (both mentally retarded and young nonretarded children) typically exhibit markedly deficient performances on tasks that demand relational responding, the present investigators have demonstrated that appropriate modifications of the visual array, designed to increase the perceptual salience of relevant stimulus relationships, can rapidly facilitate the performances of mentally retarded individuals in such experimental contexts. Informed by the findings obtained concerning the effects of perceptual structure on stimulus detection, the investigators are now proposing to extend their approach to several new paradigms, including (a) an integration of oddity and match-to-sample methodologies, and (b) assessing the visual processing abilities of mentally retarded individuals at the critical preattentional stage. This "front-end" perceptually-based approach of "guiding" attention is based on manipulations that have been used successfully in much prior research, particularly that of the current investigators. The proposed studies involve an examination of a range of experimental contexts that share common perceptual variables (e.g., symmetry and contiguity), and assess the relative contribution of these variables to attentional and preattentional processing in individuals with and without mental retardation. The findings of the proposed studies are expected to inform both applied and theoretical issues with respect to the attentional functioning of individuals with mental retardation. The proposed experiments include an integration of oddity and match-to-sample methods (i. e., oddity-based comparison arrays) with implications for generalized performances and extension of that paradigm to the investigation of set size and spatial contiguity in the matching/oddity framework. In a match-to-sample paradigm, stimulus variables including stimulus structure, symmetry of stimulus pattern, and adjacency of elements will be investigated and an analysis of the relationship between stimulus inspection time and stimulus variables will be conducted. Experiments on visual search are proposed that address stimulus variables of element contiguity and symmetry, and are followed by an investigation of guided search. The remaining experiments proposed utilize random dot kinematograms to evaluate stimulus organization variables in motion-defined forms, as well as the influences of training on detection and motion direction discrimination.