ND COBRE: VISUAL ORIENTING EFFECTS OF DIRECTIONAL CLUES

在日常生活中，方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方向性线索，例如他们的眼睛注视方向或头部方向，提供了他们的注意力指向何处的指示，从而可以提醒我们注意环境中潜在的重要物体和事件。其他非生物性的方向性提示，如箭头，也可以起到类似的作用。最近发现，凝视和箭头提示触发了快速和自动的注意力转移。迄今为止的研究集中在使用单一线索和单一目标来测量这种注意力转移;然而，在真实的世界中，我们不断地暴露在各种方向线索中， 这些线索几乎总是出现在丰富而复杂的视觉环境中，而且经常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在日常生活中处理，响应和利用方向性线索。具体来说，本项目的目标是：调查丰富的视觉环境中的方向线索的影响;识别，使用电生理记录技术，与转移注意力的反应方向线索的神经活动;探索的作用，注意力控制，和有意识的意识定向方向线索;并确定视觉方向信息的基本属性， 可以最有效地传达该信息。这项研究将导致我们的理论的人类空间注意力的一般，和神经过程的基础转移的空间注意力在视觉环境中的生物和社会相关的方向信息。

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.