Evolutionary influences on the prioritization of visual information

因为在我们的环境中有更多的视觉信息，比我们能够一次处理的要多得多，所以人们有选择地从视野的特定部分获取信息是很重要的。 拟议的研究探讨了这种选择是如何通过进化的方法来完成的;人们如何选择性地获取和处理视觉信息，这取决于哪些类型的视觉信息与我们的远祖的生存有关（例如，躲避捕食者，寻找猎物）。 本建议书概述了三个研究方案。 第一个检查如何动画运动-这种运动是生物实体的特征（即，内部生成和自我导向）-自动捕获我们的视觉注意力。 第二个项目研究姿势如何影响感知和注意力，其概念是站立准备进化的“战斗或逃跑”反应，并使人们倾向于快速的大运动动作，而坐着则抑制这种反应，并使人们倾向于精确的精细运动动作。 反过来，这些偏见也会影响什么类型的信息在视觉处理中被优先考虑，以及注意力如何在视野中分配。 第三个程序通过确定“战斗或逃跑”情绪（愤怒、恐惧）的表现是否会引发与站立相似的感知和注意力后果，来探索情绪和行动之间的假设进化联系。 这些研究项目将为进化的力量如何影响人类大脑中视觉信息的优先级提供新的信息。

Because there is much more visual information available in our environment than we can ever be able to process at once, it is important for people to selectively acquire information from specific portions of the visual field. The proposed research examines how this selection is accomplished by taking an evolutionary approach; how people selectively acquire and process visual information is influenced by what types of visual information was relevant to the survival of our distant ancestors (e.g., avoiding predators, finding prey). Three programs of research are outlined in this proposal. The first examines how animate motion - the kind of motion that is characteristic of biological entities (i.e., internally-generated and self-directed) - automatically captures our visual attention. The second program examines how posture affects perception and attention, with the notion being that standing readies evolutionary "fight or flight" responses and biases people toward rapid gross motor actions while sitting inhibits such responses and biases people toward accurate fine motor actions. In turn, these biases also influence what type of information is given priority in visual processing and how attention is allocated in the visual field. The third program explores the hypothesized evolutionary connection between emotion and action by determining if displays of "fight or flight" emotions (anger, fear) invoke similar perceptual and attentional consequences as standing. These programs of research will provide new information into how the forces of evolution influence the prioritization of visual information in the human brain.