Feedback-based gaze control in social and non-social information processing contexts

有效的凝视控制必然涉及与眼球运动相关的效果（即反馈信号）的预期。潜在的反馈回路对于理解几个层面的凝视控制是必不可少的，这些层面可以根据不同的目标进行分类。这些目标通过预期反馈信号来引导我们的视线，包括认知感知信息目标（例如，通过确保视觉稳定性和通过注视优化相关目标对象处理来优化信息摄取），影响相关目标（新信息摄取是否有益），以及社会目标（例如，环顾四周以评估和控制社会状况）。因此，与其他动作域类似，相同的动作（即眼球运动）可以在不同的解释域产生结果。虽然眼动控制理论很好地意识到与知觉目标（例如，视觉稳定性）相关的反馈处理循环，但从未考虑过来自环境的反馈。除了使用凝视控制技术的人机界面（例如，现代智能手机中基于凝视的菜单导航），凝视行为经常产生反馈的一个领域是社会互动，凝视可以用来控制社会环境（例如，我可能会凝视别人，让他们回头看）。这样，社会环境就特别适合研究基于反馈的眼球运动控制。在一项初步研究中，我们证明了预期的反馈信号（即几何形状），它发生在两个不同的眼球运动（向左/向右）上，对凝视控制有重大影响。在目前的工作计划中，我们希望进一步研究这一现象的潜在机制。虽然初步研究仅涉及非社会刺激，但我们在此将核心思想转移到社会刺激（具有显著凝视的面孔）的处理上。具体来说，参与者的眼球运动（在社会条件下）会导致对直视或回避注视的面孔的感知。在四个子部分中，我们研究了a)外源性与内源性触发目标的影响；b)与注视行为和反馈信号之间获得偶然过程相关的约束（例如，通过操纵偶然性和邻近性）；c)动眼肌控制中反馈信号处理的潜在神经特征；d)（情感和社会）控制水平之间的潜在相互作用；e)反馈回路中刺激维度之间的相互作用。通过参考相同的基于反馈的多级动作控制框架，通过研究相同的基本反馈原理，将工作方案嵌入到研究单元中。然而，与其他项目的核心区别在于关注眼球运动控制，长期以来，眼球运动控制一直被视为输入相关注意过程的窗口，而不是其本身的一种行动方式。

Efficient gaze control necessarily involves the anticipation of effects (i.e., feedback signals) associated with eye movements. The underlying feedback loops are essential to understand gaze control on several levels, which can be classified with respect to different goals. These goals, which guide our gaze by means of anticipating feedback signals, include cognitive perceptual-informational goals (e.g., optimizing information uptake by ensuring visual stability and optimizing relevant target object processing through foveation), affectrelated goals (whether new information uptake is rewarding or not), but also social goals (e.g., looking around to evaluate and control a social situation). Thus, similar to other action domains, the same action (i.e., an eye movement) can have consequences in different domains of interpretation. While theories on eye movement control are well aware of the relevance of feedback-processing loops regarding perceptual goals (e.g., visual stability), feedback from the environment has yet never been considered. Beside human-computer interfaces utilizing gaze control techniques (e.g., gaze-based menu navigation in modern smartphones), an area in which gaze behavior regularly produces feedback is social interaction, where gaze can be used to control the social environment (e.g., I might gaze at others to have them look back). In this way, a social context is especially suited to study feedback-based control of eye movements. In a preliminary study, we demonstrated that anticipated feedback signals (i.e., geometrical shapes), which occurred contingent upon two distinct eye movements (to the left/right), had a significant impact on gaze control. In the present work program, we would like to further study the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. While the preliminary study only involved non-social stimuli, we here additionally transfer the core idea to the processing of social stimuli (faces with salient gaze). Specifically, participants´ eye movements (in social conditions) result in the perception of faces which either display direct or averted gaze. Within four subsections, we study a) the impact of exogenously vs. endogenously triggered goals, b) constraints related to the process of acquiring contingencies between gaze behavior and feedback signals (e.g., by manipulating contingency and contiguity), c) underlying neural signatures of feedback signal processing in oculomotor control, d) potential interactions between (affective and social) control levels, and e) interactions between stimulus dimensions in the feedback loop. The work program is embedded in the research unit by referring to the same multi-level framework of feedback-based action control and by studying the same basic feedback principles. However, a core difference to other projects is the focus on oculomotor control, which has long been regarded as a window to input-related attention processes only, and not as an action modality in its own right.