A multi-faceted study of attention

这一建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，如识别意义和“客观性”。本次助学金申请重点关注两个方向的互动。首先，注意力的分配(或缺乏)如何影响我们处理意义的能力？尽管长期以来的观点一直认为，识别一个单词的意思是自动的，可以在没有人注意的情况下完成，但我的实验室最近的研究正在挑战这一观点。第二个问题是，参与语义计算和对象形成的过程是否会对注意力的操作产生影响，这一问题在很大程度上被忽视了。注意的范围和激活取决于加工的产品吗？最后，我还提出了一个新的研究路线，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(例如，选择、外源和内源线索、语义启动、双重任务、视觉搜索)的背景下被研究的。我的贡献是利用这些既定的范例，并以新颖的方式将它们结合在一起，提出以前从未讨论过的问题。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对更高水平过程的影响的理论描述的基础，并将进一步加深我们对注意加工本质的理解。

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.