How do independent attentional mechanisms coordinate information processing across the visual system?

独立的注意力机制如何协调整个视觉系统的信息处理？

• 批准号: 418507-2012
• 负责人: AlAidroos, Naseem
• 金额: $ 2.19万
• 依托单位: University of Guelph
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=631215
• 关键词: How; do; independent; attentional; mechanisms

We live in environments that contain far more visual information than our finite brains can process. While this means that sometimes we fail to see parts of our world (as demonstrated by the popular invisible gorilla: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html), we can nevertheless use this environmental information to guide our behaviour in amazingly complex ways, such as when driving a car. How do we make sense of overwhelming environments to successfully guide behaviour?The key to our success is attention. Our brains use of a number of attentional mechanisms that shape how we process information based on our current goals. In this way attention simplifies information processing by focussing on the important information, and ignoring the rest. For example, when searching for a friend in a crowd wearing a red sweater, attention will prioritize processing of red things, over non-red things. Indeed, there are numerous attentional mechanisms that allow us to prioritize visual processing in different ways. There are mechanisms for prioritizing features (e.g., specific colours or shapes), spatial locations (e.g., specific regions in your visual field), and categories (e.g., faces or scenes), among many others. While past research has studied each of these mechanisms in isolation to identify their basic properties and limitations, my research program will investigate how these individual mechanisms coordinate to guide information processing in a coherent manner across the visual system. This level of description is critical for understanding the attentional constraints on human behaviour. While we sometimes make mistakes due to a lack of attention, our mistakes also frequently result from attention to the wrong information (e.g., such as when talking on a phone while driving). By studying how control over visual processing is coordinated, and passed between, attentional mechanisms, the present research program will provide an important guide in optimizing behavioural performance across diverse domains.

我们生活的环境中包含的视觉信息远远超过我们有限的大脑所能处理的。虽然这意味着有时我们无法看到我们世界的某些部分（正如流行的隐形大猩猩所展示的那样：http：//www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html），但我们仍然可以使用这些环境信息以令人惊讶的复杂方式指导我们的行为，例如驾驶汽车。我们如何理解压倒性的环境，以成功地引导行为？我们成功的关键是注意力。我们的大脑使用许多注意力机制，这些机制塑造了我们如何根据当前目标处理信息。这样，注意力通过集中在重要信息上而忽略其他信息来简化信息处理。例如，当在人群中搜索穿红色毛衣的朋友时，注意力会优先处理红色的东西，而不是非红色的东西。事实上，有许多注意力机制允许我们以不同的方式优先考虑视觉处理。存在用于对特征进行优先级排序的机制（例如，特定颜色或形状），空间位置（例如，视野中的特定区域），以及类别（例如，或多或少的人，都有自己的故事。虽然过去的研究已经孤立地研究了这些机制中的每一个，以确定它们的基本属性和局限性，但我的研究计划将研究这些单独的机制如何协调，以连贯的方式在整个视觉系统中指导信息处理。这种描述水平对于理解人类行为的注意力约束至关重要。虽然我们有时会因为缺乏注意力而犯错误，但我们的错误也经常是由于注意到错误的信息（例如，例如当在开车时打电话时）。通过研究视觉处理的控制是如何协调的，并在注意力机制之间传递，本研究计划将为优化不同领域的行为表现提供重要指导。