Components of human attention

在我们的日常生活中，我们面对的信息比我们可能接受的要多。出于这个原因，我们从我们可以获得的信息中进行选择。这种选择过程通常是自愿的（内生的），但有时世界上的事物会反射性地（外生的）吸引我们的注意力。当我们关注视觉信息时，我们倾向于关注我们感兴趣的东西（显性选择），尽管偶尔我们也会偷偷关注眼角以外的东西（隐性关注）。这些关注某些信息而排斥其他信息的过程是我研究的重点。人类似乎有一种压倒性的偏好，即用头脑来关注事物，也就是说，我们认为世界上的主体有经验（他们能感觉到东西）和能动性（他们能做事情）。研究人员一直在努力和争论如何将思想对人类注意力的影响与世界上其他不代表思想的特征（例如，物体的亮度）分离开来。我的实验室最近发现，与真人相比，人们对以图像形式出现的人的“心智”认识更少，而对人的图像的“心智”认识更少。我们将这种新现象称为“美杜莎效应”，它提供了一种将有意识的注意力效应与无意识的注意力效应区分开来的方法。在这个建议中，三个层次的调查被概述为代表我的实验室的研究计划。每个层次都涉及到美杜莎效应的应用，以识别观察者对被感知为代表思想的信息的注意选择。在调查的第一个层次上，对静态图像（如照片）的注意力进行了检查。在第二级，使用动态图像（例如，视频）。在第三个层次，刺激是真实的人。行为测量是贯穿始终的。这项研究提出的观点是，注意选择的原则是由它们所处的环境决定的。目前的提议是这一观点的一个特别有力的例子，它研究了人类对有思想的生物的偏好是如何受到他们所处环境的复杂性的影响的。

In our everyday lives we are presented with more information than we can possibly take in. For this reason, we select from the information that is available to us. This selection process is often volitional (endogenous) but sometimes things in the world draw our attention reflexively (exogenously). When attending to visual information, we tend to look at things that interest us (overt selection) though occasionally we may secretly attend to things out of the corner of our eyes (covert attention). These processes of attending to some information to the exclusion of other information is the focus of my research. Humans seem to have an overwhelming preference to attend to things with minds, that is, subjects in our world that we perceive as having experience (they can feel things) and agency (they can do things). Researchers have struggled and debated on how to isolate the effects of mind on human attention from other features in the world that do not represent mind (e.g., the brightness of an object). My lab has recently discovered that people ascribe less 'mind' to people seen in image form versus in the flesh, and even less mind again to images of images of people. This new phenomenon, which we coined the 'Medusa effect', provides a way to tease apart the attention effects of mind from nonmind. In this proposal three levels of investigation are outlined as representative of my lab's program of research. Each level is concerned with the application of the Medusa effect to identify an observer's attentional selection of information that is perceived to represent a mind. At the first level of investigation attentional orienting to static images (e.g., photos) is examined. At the second level, dynamic images (e.g., videos) are utilised. At the third level, the stimuli are real people. Behavioural measures are obtained throughout. The idea emerging from the proposed research is that the principles of attentional selection are shaped by the context in which they operate. The present proposal stands as a particularly strong example of this view by examining the ways that humans' preference toward minded beings is influenced by the complexity of the situation that they are embedded within.