Tracing the template: Investigating the representation of perceptual relevance

适应性感知要求相关信息优先于不相关信息。当我们寻找一本特定的书，而我们只记得它的封面颜色时，我们可以将搜索范围限制在主要的颜色上。我们正在寻找的东西的心理表征被称为注意力模板（也称为目标模板，搜索模板，注意力集;例如，Folk等人，1992年）。注意模板是反映当前选择偏好的灵活表示，如从不断变化的任务需求和先前选择历史中得到的。尽管注意力模板对于塑造和控制日常生活中的感知和行动至关重要，但令人惊讶的是，人们对它们的性质知之甚少。例如，当你寻找你的车钥匙时，你是看它们的形状，颜色，还是两者兼而有之？在后者的情况下，形状和颜色是整合在一个单一的表示，还是他们独立表示？你能同时寻找你的钱包，而不影响你的密钥模板吗？此外，通常假设视觉注意力由视觉模板引导，但是完全可能的是，非视觉类型的表示（例如，语义代码）也被涉及。最后，模板的性质可能会在学习过程中发生根本性的变化，作为选择history.AimThe的结果，我们的联合研究提案的目的是回答什么样的代表性的注意模板是一个基本问题，在功能（它如何影响我们的行为），生理（它如何在大脑中实现），和时间（它如何受到学习/选择历史的影响）。我们如何灵活地建立新的注意力偏好仍然是认知神经科学中最大的谜团之一，任何对模板的引用都涉及对侏儒的一些残余吸引力。虽然我们不能在研究中完全排除这个侏儒，但我们的最终目标是退而求其次，寻求对这个侏儒本质的基本新见解。为此，在其他几个项目中，我们关注的问题包括可以同时维护的模板数量、控制模板的动态以及不同记忆系统的影响。在这次合作中，我们专注于表征的基本问题：注意模板的性质是什么？具体来说，它可以持有什么类型的偏好，这些偏好如何作为经验的函数而变化，以及这些表征背后的神经代码是什么？彻底理解注意模板的表征特性是迈向注意的神经认知模型的重要一步，这种模型最终将用目标导向的感知和行动的科学理论取代侏儒。

Adaptive perception requires the prioritization of relevant over irrelevant information. When we are looking for a specific book of which we only remember the color of its cover, we can limit our search to mainly that color. The mental representation of what we are looking for is called the attentional template (also target template, search template, attentional set; e.g., Folk et al., 1992). An attentional template is a flexible representation reflecting current selection preferences, as derived from continuously changing task demands and prior selection history. Even though attentional templates are essential for shaping and controlling perception and action in everyday life, surprisingly little is known about their nature. For example, when you look for your car keys, do you look for their shape, their color, or both? In case of the latter, are shape and color integrated in a single representation, or are they independently represented? Can you look for your wallet at the same time, without affecting your key-template? Furthermore, it is often assumed that visual attention is guided by visual templates, but it is perfectly possible that non-visual types of representation (e.g., semantic codes) are also involved. Finally, the nature of the template may change fundamentally in the course of learning, as a result of selection history.AimThe aim of our joint research proposal is to answer the fundamental question of what kind of representation the attentional template is, in terms of function (how it affects our behaviour), physiology (how it is implemented in the brain), and time (how it is affected by learning/selection history). How we flexibly set up new attentional preferences remains one of the great mysteries in cognitive neuroscience, and any reference to templates involves some residual appeal to a homunculus. Although we will not be able to completely banish this homunculus in our research, ourultimate aim is to do the next best thing, to seek fundamental new insights into the nature of this homunculus. To this end, in several other projects we have focused on questions like the number of templates that can be maintained simultaneously, the dynamics of controlling the template, and the influence of different memory systems. In this collaboration we focus on the fundamental question of representation: What is the nature of the attentional template? Specifically, what types of preference can it hold, how do these change as a function of experience, and what are the neural codes underlying these representations? A thorough understanding of the representational properties of attentional templates is a major step on the way towards a neuro cognitive model of attention which will eventually replace the homunculus with a scientific theory of goal-directed perception and action.