Multisensory Object Based Attention

描述(申请人提供)：在任何时刻，大量的信息进入我们的各种感官系统。有限的高阶处理能力要求在基本感觉水平之外只处理这些信息的一个子集。有选择地注意位置、刺激特征和整个物体是我们将有限的高级处理资源引导到与任务相关的信息的重要方式。到目前为止，基于对象的注意只在视觉感觉通道中被证明，表明当注意力指向对象的单一特征(例如其颜色)时，对象的构成任务无关的特征也被选择用于优先处理。然而，物体倾向于在多个感觉模式中具有特征特征，因此当将注意力引导到一个物体时，很可能有利的是启动一个以上的感觉系统来处理该物体的典型特征。本研究的目的是检验基于对象的注意是否具有多感官特性，即在一种感觉通道中注意到一个物体时，在无人注意的感觉通道中优先处理其特征特征。使用经典的选择性注意范式的一种变体，高密度头皮记录的事件相关电位将被用来评估选择性注意效应的存在。听觉、视觉和视听物体将被呈现给受试者，并在不同的块中指示他们在听觉或视觉物体上执行任务。以任务无关的感觉通道呈现的被关注物体的选择性注意效应的存在(例如，在视觉注意块期间对被关注物体的听觉元素的选择性注意效应)将表明，选择性地关注一个物体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通道呈现的。了解这些多感觉注意过程在健康受试者中是如何工作的，最终将使我们能够考虑它们在临床群体中是如何分解的，例如精神分裂症和自闭症患者。注意力缺陷被认为是精神分裂症的一个标志；目前关于自闭症的一种流行理论是，它是一种“感觉统合”障碍，尽管很少有经验数据被收集来检验这一理论。项目说明：第一年：实验1a和1b已编制好程序，并准备在同一组受试者上运行。然后，第一步将是招募受试者，并开始为实验1a和1b收集数据。在这一年内，将收集和充分处理全部数据集。这包括对数据的统计分析和对不同条件下的选择性注意效应的来源建模。然后，这些数据将在CNS和国际多感官研究论坛(IMRF)等科学会议上提交，我将开始撰写报告，提交给同行评议期刊。

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.