Binding Across Perception and Action

我们每天都会与环境中的大量物体互动，而我们在日常生活中取得的成功很大程度上取决于我们在处理我们遇到的物体时取得的成功。正因为如此，人类如何注意和感知视野中的物体是认知科学和视觉科学中的一个持久的问题。换句话说，物体在人类的头脑和大脑中是如何表现的？早期的答案是“对象文件”，其中各种感知特征(即，颜色、形状、大小)被捆绑在一起以创建连贯的对象(例如，该对象是一个小的黄色方框)。这个概念演变成了“事件文件”，其中动作(例如，左手响应)被添加到对象表示中。我的研究延续了客体表征的这种演变，理论上认为认知概念可以被视为特征(“认知特征”)，并因此可以与知觉和运动特征捆绑在一起，形成一种新的客体表征类型--“情境文件”。要被认为是一种认知特征，概念必须通过严格的实验测试；概念必须能够产生自动的注意力转移，从而在视觉处理中优先考虑概念。这些可能的认知特征包括所有权(谁拥有该对象？)、报酬(该对象是否有价值？)、生命性(该对象是活的吗？)和启示(我可以将该对象用于什么？)。这些认知功能在大脑中都没有直接的探测器，只能存在有限的时间段(即情况)，但在定义对象方面发挥着重要作用。如果可以将这些认知特征绑定到情景文件中，则会对它们进行测试。一旦确定了可以绑定的认知特征，下一阶段的研究将确定知觉、运动和认知特征被绑定到情景文件中的速度，以及对象中的特征之间的绑定有多强。换句话说，这部分研究将研究情景文件中的绑定过程是如何工作的。在为情境档案理论奠定了实验基础之后，拟议研究的最后阶段将应用情境档案在运动控制领域产生新的见解，特别是规划和产生引导肢体运动(我们与物体互动时通常做出的动作)。具体地说，情况档案的解释力将应用于与肢体运动规划有关的两个重要问题：准备移动某些手指对其他手指随后运动的影响，以及最终目标如何违反速度换取准确性的法则。总体而言，提出的情景档案新理论将把物体表征的概念扩展到更多的人脑认知过程，允许更有力地解释我们对物体的认知、知觉和运动行为。

Every day we interact with a multitude of objects in our environment, and a large part of the success we have in our daily lives depends on the success we have in dealing with the objects we encounter. Because of this, one of the enduring issues in cognition and vision science is how humans attend and perceive objects in the visual field. In other words, how are objects represented in human minds and brains? An early answer was “object files”, where various perceptual features (i.e., colour, shape, size) were bound together to create coherent objects (e.g., this object is a small yellow box). This notion evolved into “event files”, where actions (e.g., left hand response) were added to object representations. My research continues this evolution of object representations by theorizing that cognitive concepts can be treated as features (“cognitive features”) and as such can be bound with perceptual and motor features to form a new type of object representation a “situation file”. To be considered a cognitive feature, a concept must pass a stringent experimental test; the concept must be capable of generating automatic shifts of attention that prioritizes the concept in visual processing. Such possible cognitive features that will be examined include ownership (who owns the object?), reward (is the object valued?), animacy (is the object is alive?), and affordance (what I can use this object for?). None of these cognitive features have direct detectors in the brain, and can exist for only limited periods of time (i.e., situations), but play important roles in defining objects. These cognitive features will then be tested if they can be bound into situation files. Once the cognitive features that can be bound are determined, the next phase of this research will determine how fast perceptual, motor, and cognitive features are bound into situation files, and how strong the binding is between features in objects. In other words, this portion of the research will examine how the binding process works in situation files. Having created the experimental foundation for the theory of situation files, the last phase of the proposed research will apply situation files to generate new insights in the field of motor control, particularly the planning and production of guided limb movements (the movements we typically make when interacting with objects). Specifically, the explanatory power of situation files will be applied to two important issues related to the planning of limb movements; the aftereffect of preparing to move certain fingers on the subsequent movement of other fingers, and how final targets violate a law of trading off speed for accuracy. Overall, the proposed new theory of situation files will extend the concept of object representations to significantly more of the human brain's cognitive processes, allowing for much more powerful explanations of our cognitive, perceptual, and motor behaviours to objects.**