How does uncertainty influence selective attention during human associative learning?

注意力的特征是什么？它们是如何指导学习的？到目前为止，注意力被分别描述为具有利用或探索的性质：我们利用环境中已知的模式，或者我们探索新的可能性。该项目提供了一种新的方法来研究这些过程如何在不同的不确定性条件下相互作用，这将揭示这些不同的过程如何控制人类行为。这种独特的方法将提供重要的经验数据，推动一个新的混合注意学习理论的发展。除了具有重要的理论益处外，这项研究还将对已知注意力功能缺陷的临床疾病产生影响。

What are the characteristics of attention and how do they come to guide learning? To date, attention has been described separately as either being of an exploitative or an exploratory nature: we exploit known patterns in the environment, or we explore new possibilities. This project provides a new method of examining how these processes interact under conditions of varying uncertainty, which will reveal how these different processes come to control human behaviour. This unique approach will provide important empirical data, driving forward the development of a new hybrid attentional theory of learning. As well as having vital theoretical benefits, this research will have implications for clinical disorders with known deficits in attentional function.