Evolutionary influences on the prioritization of visual information

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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.