The links between attention and tactile awareness

我们通过触觉接收的信息可能非常重要，表明刺激已经与身体接触，因此可能需要立即做出反应。例如，虽然蚊子的声音和景象表明你可能很快就会被叮咬，但它落在你皮肤上的感觉表明这种风险已经大大增加了！考虑到这种高度的重要性，人们可能会认为触觉刺激将以非常高的优先级被检测到，也许在某种程度上，即使我们正在从事另一项艰巨的任务，它们也可以吸引我们的注意力。然而，与这一假设相反，有趣的初步研究结果表明，注意力的缺乏实际上会让人们对“疏忽的注意力”敞开大门，他们完全错过了触觉刺激，而这些刺激在其他情况下是明显可见的（Mack & Rock，1998）。事实上，尽管我们有可能感觉到蚊子落在皮肤上，但我们中的许多人也遭受了没有成功做到这一点的后果，也许是通过将注意力集中在一本吸引人的书或一顿美味的饭菜上而经历了“疏忽麻木”。扒手可能会故意利用这种倾向，撞到一边的人，以吸引注意力，从另一边的口袋里，他们正在偷钱包。目前的项目将调查这种令人兴奋的“无意麻木”现象，并将用它来解决触觉注意力研究领域内的几个重要理论问题。首先，我们将研究意外触摸可以吸引注意力的优先级。在这一领域有影响力的理论（“知觉负荷理论”，参见Lavie，2010年，回顾）预测，人们在从事要求高的任务时比在从事要求不高的任务时更不可能注意到意外的刺激。这一预测以前从未在触摸中得到过验证。因此，仍然有可能的是，触觉刺激可能会被如此高的优先级处理，以至于即使在正在进行的任务要求很高的情况下，它们也会被检测到。我们将使用“无意麻木”范式来提供一个正式的测试，以确定人们在从事一项要求很高的任务时是否不太可能注意到意外的触觉刺激。这项工作是重要的，在进一步了解我们的检测意外的触觉刺激，并在提供第一次测试的知觉负荷理论内touch.Next，我们将把我们的研究到一个更多的多感官的背景下，为了使它更接近现实世界中的情况下，信息是通过一个以上的感官方式同时接收。我们将询问是否注意触觉任务可以减少检测的听觉和/或视觉刺激，以及是否检测触觉刺激可能会受到并发的视觉或听觉注意力任务。除了扩展注意力不集中范式以反映更逼真的情境外，本研究还将有助于重要的理论争论，即加工资源在感觉通道之间是共享的，还是在感觉通道之间保持不同（参见Driver & Spence，2004年的综述）。除了在一系列领域对理论理解做出贡献外，我们项目的发现将对真实的生活情况有许多潜在的应用。检测和响应意外的触觉刺激的过程在一系列情况下是重要的。例如，触觉警告信号已经在飞机驾驶舱中使用了很长时间（其中“摇杆振动器”用于警告飞行员即将发生失速），并且它们越来越多地被引入到国内汽车中（其中一些现在使用触觉刺激作为车道偏离警告系统的一部分）。因此，“疏忽麻木”的调查可能会有广泛的重要的实际意义，在不同的领域，如界面设计和事故调查。

The information that we receive through the sense of touch can be extremely important, in indicating that a stimulus has already made contact with the body and may thus require an immediate response. For example, although the sight and sound of a mosquito suggests that you may soon be bitten, the feeling of it landing on your skin signals that this risk has substantially increased! Given this high level of importance, one might assume that tactile stimuli would be detected with very high priority, perhaps to the extent that they could attract our attention even when we are engaged in another demanding task. However, in contrast to this assumption, intriguing preliminary findings suggest that the absence of attention can in fact leave people open to 'inattentional numbness', whereby they completely miss tactile stimuli that are otherwise clearly noticeable (Mack & Rock, 1998). Indeed, although it is possible to feel a mosquito landing on the skin, many of us have also suffered the consequences of not doing so successfully, perhaps experiencing 'inattentional numbness' through focusing attention on an absorbing book or a delicious meal. Pickpockets may deliberately exploit this tendency, bumping into someone on one side in order to draw attention away from a pocket on the other side from which they are stealing a wallet. The current project will investigate this exciting phenomenon of 'inattentional numbness' and will use it to address several important theoretical issues within the field of tactile attention research.First, we will examine the priority with which an unexpected touch can attract attention. An influential theory in this area ('perceptual load theory', see Lavie, 2010, for review) predicts that people are less likely to notice unexpected stimuli when they are engaged in a demanding task than when they are engaged in an undemanding task. This prediction has never before been tested within touch. It therefore remains possible that tactile stimuli might be processed with such high priority that they are detected even when the ongoing task is highly demanding. We will use the 'inattentional numbness' paradigm to provide a formal test of whether people are less likely to notice unexpected tactile stimuli when they are engaged in a demanding task. This work is important both in furthering our understanding of the detection of unexpected tactile stimuli and in providing the first test of perceptual load theory within touch.Next, we will move our research into a more multisensory context, in order to bring it closer to real-world situations in which information is received simultaneously through more than one sensory modality. We will ask whether paying attention to a tactile task can reduce detection of auditory and/or visual stimuli and also whether detection of tactile stimuli might be affected by a concurrent visual or auditory attention task. As well as extending the inattention paradigm to reflect more lifelike situations, this research will contribute to the important theoretical debate over whether processing resources are shared between sensory modalities or kept distinct between modalities (see Driver & Spence, 2004, for review).As well as contributing to theoretical understanding in a range of areas, the findings from our project will have many potential applications to real life situations. The process of detecting and responding to unexpected tactile stimuli is important in a range of situations. For example, tactile warning signals have for a long time been used in aircraft cockpits (where the 'stick shaker' is used to warn pilots of an impending stall) and they are increasingly being introduced to domestic cars (several of which now use tactile stimuli as part of lane deviation warning systems). Investigations of 'inattentional numbness' are therefore likely to have a wide range of important practical implications, in areas as diverse as interface design and accident investigation.