ND COBRE: VISUAL ORIENTING EFFECTS OF DIRECTIONAL CLUES

在日常生活中，定向线索提供了丰富的视觉信息来源，可以在许多方面影响人类的行为。来自人类和其他动物的定向信号，如他们的眼睛凝视方向或头部方向，提供了他们注意力指向哪里的指示，从而可以提醒我们注意我们环境中潜在的重要物体和事件。其他非生物的定向线索，如箭头，也可以起到类似的作用。最近，人们发现凝视和箭头提示会引发快速而自动的注意力转移。到目前为止，研究的重点是使用单一线索和单一目标来测量这种注意力转移；然而，在现实世界中，我们不断地接触到各种方向性线索， 这些线索几乎总是出现在丰富而复杂的视觉环境中，而且往往出现在我们的目标和情感状态具有影响力的情况下。这个项目的总体目标是了解我们如何处理、回应和利用日常生活中的方向性线索。具体地说，本项目的目标是：研究定向线索在丰富的视觉环境中的作用；利用电生理记录技术，识别与定向线索引起的注意力转移相关的神经活动；探索语境、注意控制和意识意识在定向线索定向中的作用；以及确定视觉定向信息的基本属性，并研究如何 这一信息可以最有效地传达出来。这项研究将导致我们对人类空间注意的总体理论的完善，以及对视觉环境中生物和社会相关方向信息反应空间注意转移的神经过程的改进。

In everyday life, directional cues provide a rich source of visual information that can influence human behavior in many ways. Directional cues from people and other animals, such as their eye gaze direction or head orientation, provide an indication of where their attention is directed, and thus can alert us to potentially important objects and events in our environment. Other, nonbiological, directional cues such as arrows can perform a similar function. Recently it was discovered that gaze and arrow cues trigger a shift of attention that is fast and automatic. The research to date has focused on measuring this attentional shift using a single cue and a single target; however, in the real world we are continually exposed to a variety of directional cues, and these cues almost always appear within a rich and complex visual context, and often in situations in which our goals and affective states are influential. The overall objective of this project is to understand how we process, respond to, and make use of directional cues in our daily lives. Specifically, the goals of this project are: to investigate the effects of directional cues in rich visual environments; to identify, using electrophysiological recording techniques, the neural activity associated with shifting attention in response to directional cues; to explore the roles of context, attentional control, and conscious awareness in orienting to directional cues; and to identify the essential properties of visual directional information and investigate how this information can be most effectively conveyed. This research will lead to a refinement of our theories of human spatial attention in general, and of the neural processes that underlie shifts of spatial attention in response to biologically and socially relevant directional information in the visual environment.