A multi-faceted study of attention

这个提议继续了我对负责注意力的系统和负责更高层次处理的系统的研究，比如对意义和“客体性”的识别。本资助申请侧重于两个方向的互动。首先，注意力的分配（或缺乏注意力）如何影响我们处理意义的能力？尽管长期以来的观点认为，识别一个词的意思在某种程度上是自动的，可以在没有注意的情况下完成，但我实验室最近的工作正在挑战这一观点。第二个主要被忽视的问题是，涉及语义和对象形成计算的过程是否对注意力的操作有影响。注意的范围和激活是否取决于加工的产物？最后，我还提出了一项新的研究，旨在调查注意加工的可靠性和个体差异。这些问题是在既定的范式和程序（如选择、外生和内生线索、语义启动、双任务、视觉搜索）的背景下研究的。我的贡献是采用这些已建立的范例，并以新颖的方式将它们结合起来，提出以前没有解决的问题。这些领域的试点工作表明，这些问题的答案将迫使我们重新评估当前一些关于注意力对更高层次过程影响的理论基础，并将进一步加深我们对注意力处理本质的理解。

This proposal continues my study of the systems responsible for attention and those responsible for higher level processing such as the recognition of meaning and "objectness." This grant application focuses on the interaction from two directions. First, how does the allocation of attention (or lack of it) affect our ability to process meaning? Although the longstanding view has been that recognizing a word's meaning is somehow automatic and can be accomplished in the absence of attention, recent work from my lab is challenging this view. The second, and largely neglected, issue is whether processes involved in the computation of semantics and object formation have consequences for the operation of attention. Does the scope and activation of attention depend on the products of processing? Finally, I also present a novel line of research aimed at investigating reliability and individual differences in attentional processing. These questions are investigated in the context of established paradigms and procedures (e.g., selection, exogenous and endogenous cueing, semantic priming, dual-task, visual search). My contribution is to take these established paradigms and combine them in novel ways to ask questions that have not been previously addressed. Pilot work in these areas suggests that the answers to these questions will force us to re-evaluate the underpinnings of a number of current theoretical accounts of the effects of attention on higher level processes, and will further our understanding of the nature of attentional processing.