UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: The Guiding Principle of Attentional Allocation

注意力是认知的中心过程。当人们在环境中搜索与他们当前目标相关的信息时，他们是在选择性地处理感知信息。对我们理解注意选择的关键是确定是什么指导了这一选择。直到最近，人们还观察到空间位置对注意指导很重要。然而，最近的证据表明，在某些情况下，引导注意选择的是物体，而不是空间位置。完全理解为什么在某些情况下这样的指导是可能的仍然是难以捉摸的。这项研究引入并测试了一个新的统一框架，不确定性减少，在这个框架内检查影响基于对象的注意指导的因素。在几种不同的范式下，通过系统地测试该框架在两个不确定性领域的预测能力：通过奖赏操纵的内部不确定性减少和通过改变注意设置范围操纵的外部不确定性减少，来考察该框架的普遍性。为了了解不确定性减少及其对基于对象的注意指导的影响，我们考察了这一机制的行为特征和神经基础。无论是在安静的起居室里读书，还是在交通拥堵的路上开车，关注环境的重要方面都是我们生活中不可或缺的一部分，最终对我们的成功和生存至关重要。更好地了解决定注意力选择如何部署的关键因素对于不同的领域非常重要，例如交互式和人体工程学面板的设计以及跨多个行业的强化培训计划，从培训司机和机器操作员到安全人员(例如机场行李筛查员)，再到阅读X光以寻找癌症证据的神经科医生。

Attention is a central process in cognition. When people search through the environment for information relevant to their current goal, they are selectively processing perceptual information. Crucial to our understanding of attentional selection is determining what guides this selection. Until recently it has been observed that spatial locations are important for attentional guidance. However, recent evidence suggests that under some circumstances objects, not spatial locations, guide attentional selection. The full understanding of why under some circumstances such guidance is possible has remained elusive. This program of research introduces and tests a new unifying framework, uncertainty reduction, within which to examine factors that influence object-based attentional guidance. The generality of this framework is investigated, in several different paradigms, by systematically testing its predictive powers in two domains of uncertainty: internal uncertainty reduction as manipulated by reward and external uncertainty reduction as manipulated by varying the scope of attentional set. In order to understand uncertainty reduction and its effects on object-based attentional guidance, behavioral profiles as well as the neural underpinnings of this mechanism are examined. Whether reading a book in the peace and quiet of your living room or driving a car in traffic, the ability to pay attention to important aspects of the environment is an integral part of our lives and, ultimately, is crucial to our success and survival. A better understanding of critical factors that determine how attentional selection is deployed is important to diverse fields such as the design of interactive and ergonomic panels and enhanced training programs across multiple industries, ranging from training drivers and machine operators to security personnel (e.g., airport baggage screeners) to neurologists reading X-rays for evidence of cancer.