Multisensory Object Based Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：大量的信息随时进入我们的各个感官系统。有限的高阶处理能力要求只处理这些信息的一个子集，超出基本的感官水平。选择性地关注位置、刺激特征和整个对象是我们将有限的高阶加工资源导向任务相关信息的重要方式。到目前为止，基于物体的注意只在视觉感官模式中得到了证明，表明当注意力被引导到物体的单个特征（例如它的颜色）时，物体的组成任务无关的特征也被选择为优先处理。然而，物体往往具有多种感官模式的特征，因此，当将注意力引导到一个物体上时，启动多个感官系统来处理该物体的典型特征可能是有利的。本研究的目的是测试基于物体的注意是否是多感官的，即在一种感觉模态下注意一个物体会导致其特征在未注意的感觉模态中被优先加工。采用Hillyard经典选择性注意范式的一种变体，高密度头皮记录事件相关电位被用来评估选择性注意效应的存在。听觉、视觉和听觉-视觉对象将呈现给受试者，在不同的区域，他们将被指示对听觉或视觉对象执行任务。在与任务无关的感觉模态中呈现的被关注对象的选择性注意效应（例如，在视觉注意块期间被关注对象的听觉元素）的存在表明，选择性地关注一个对象会导致对其组成特征的优先处理，即使它们是以被忽略的感觉模态呈现的。了解这些多感觉注意过程如何在健康受试者中发挥作用，最终将使我们能够考虑它们如何在精神分裂症和自闭症患者等临床群体中发挥作用。注意力缺陷被认为是精神分裂症的标志；目前关于自闭症的一个流行理论是，它是一种“感觉统合”障碍，尽管几乎没有收集到实证数据来验证这一理论。项目描述：第一年：实验1a和1b已编程，并准备在同一组受试者上运行。第一步将是招募受试者，并开始收集实验1a和1b的数据。在这一年中，将收集和充分处理完整的数据集。这包括对数据的统计分析和不同条件下选择性注意效应的来源建模。然后，这些数据将在诸如CNS和国际多感官研究论坛（IMRF）等科学会议上展示，我将开始撰写报告，提交给同行评审期刊。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An abundance of information enters our various sensory systems at any moment in time. Limited higher-order processing capacities require that only a sub-set of this information is processed beyond the basic sensory level. Selectively attending to locations, stimulus features, and whole objects are important ways in which we direct limited higher-order processing resources to task-relevant information. Thus far object-based attention has only been demonstrated within the visual sensory modality, showing that when attention is directed toward a single feature of an object (for example its color), the constituent task-irrelevant features of the object are also selected for preferential processing. However, objects tend to have characteristic features in multiple sensory modalities and thus when directing attention toward an object, it may well be advantageous to prime more than one sensory system to process features typical of that object. The goal of the proposed research is to test whether object-based attention is multisensory, such that attending to an object in one sensory modality results in the preferential processing of its characteristic features in unattended sensory modalities. Using a variation of the classical selective attention paradigm of Hillyard, high-density scalp recorded event-related potentials will be used to assess the presence of selective attention effects. Auditory, visual, and auditory- visual objects will be presented to subjects, and in different blocks they will be instructed to perform a task on the auditory or the visual objects. The presence of selective attention effects for attended objects presented in task-irrelevant sensory modalities (e.g., for the auditory element of the attended object during visual attention blocks) would indicate that selectively attending to an object results in the preferential processing of its constituent features even when they are presented in ignored sensory modalities. Understanding how these multisensory attentional processes work in healthy subjects will ultimately allow us to consider how they may breakdown in clinical groups such as persons with schizophrenia and autism. Attentional deficits are considered a hallmark of schizophrenia; and a popular theory of autism at present is that it is a "sensory integration" disorder, though little empirical data has been collected toward testing this theory. Project Narrative: Year one: Experiments 1a and 1b are programmed and ready to be run on the same set of subjects. The first step then will be to recruit subjects, and begin data collection for Experiments 1a and 1b. Within the course of the year the full dataset will be collected and fully processed. This includes the statistical analysis of the data and source modeling of the selective attention effects across the different conditions. These data will then be presented at scientific meetings such as CNS and the international multisensory research forum (IMRF), and I will begin to work on reports for submission to peer review journals.