Visual Attention and Perception: Locations, Objects, and Organization

看到并作用于视觉世界需要的不仅仅是对视觉信息的被动记录。还需要对输入的信息进行有意的基于知识的控制。本研究的目的是探讨相对被动的视觉知觉过程与较主动的视觉注意过程之间的协调关系。过去的研究已经揭示了输入信息的感知组织的许多方面，包括图形与地面的分离，遮挡表面后面的物体的完成，以及对诸如阴影等虚假信息的补偿。本项目涉及与知觉组织过程何时和如何发挥作用相关的主动选择信息的时间和方式。这些问题将通过引入传统的视觉注意范式来解决，以探索感知过程的状态。例如，一个这样的范例是视觉搜索，这是对现实生活中视觉任务的实验室模拟，在这种任务中，有机体在其环境中搜索有趣的对象，如配偶、捕食者和食物。为了完成这项任务，参与者必须引导他或她的注意力穿过场景，积极寻找想要的物品。将通过在显示器上投射阴影来探索这种注意力引导和对照明中的虚假变化的折扣之间的相互作用。研究结果将告诉我们，注意力的引导是否以及如何被阴影等虚假信息扰乱，从而告诉我们相对于注意力引导，阴影的补偿发生在什么时候。加强对知觉加工和有意控制加工之间的协调的理解在许多领域都是有用的。首先，任何一个人必须同时从事多个子任务的情况(例如，在驾驶、飞行控制和运动期间)都需要这种协调。将这些情况下使用的工具的开发建立在对人类系统的长处和短处的了解的基础上，将增加它们成功的可能性。同样，人类如何自然地协调感知和注意力的知识将有助于决定如何最有效地呈现信息(例如，对于医学成像和其他复杂的数据集)。

Seeing and acting upon the visual world requires more than the passive registration of visual information. Also required is intentional knowledge-based control over that incoming information. The goal of this research is to investigate the coordination between the relatively passive processes of visual perception and the more active processes of visual attention. Past research has shed light on many aspects of the perceptual organization of incoming information, including the separation of figure from ground, the completion of objects behind occluding surfaces, and the compensation for spurious information such as shadows. The present project concerns when and how the active selection of information occurs relative to when and how the processes of perceptual organization come into play. These issues will be addressed by introducing into traditional visual-attention paradigms manipulations for probing the state of perceptual processes. For example, one such paradigm is visual search, which is a laboratory analogue for real-life visual tasks in which an organism searches its environment for interesting objects, such as mates, predators, and food. To perform this task the participant must guide his or her attention through the scene in an active search for the desired item. The interaction between this guidance of attention and the discounting of spurious changes in illumination will be probed by casting shadows across the display. The results will tell us whether and how the guidance of attention is disrupted by spurious information like shadows, thereby informing us about when compensation for shadows occurs relative to attentional guidance. Enhanced understanding of the coordination between perceptual processing and intentional control over that processing will be useful in a number of domains. First, any situation in which a person must engage in multiple subtasks simultaneously (e.g., during driving, flight-control, and sports) requires this coordination. Basing the development of tools for use in these situations on knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the human system will increase the probability of their success. Similarly, knowledge of how humans naturally coordinate perception and attention will be useful for deciding how to present information most effectively (e.g., for medical imaging and other complex data sets).