Multisensory Object Based Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：丰富的信息随时进入我们的各种感觉系统。有限的高阶处理能力要求只有一个子集的信息被处理超过基本的感官水平。有选择地关注位置、刺激特征和整个物体是我们将有限的高阶处理资源用于任务相关信息的重要方式。到目前为止，基于对象的注意力仅在视觉感官模态中得到证明，表明当注意力指向对象的单个特征（例如其颜色）时，对象的组成任务无关特征也被选择用于优先处理。然而，对象往往具有多个感觉模态中的特性特征，因此当将注意力引导到对象时，启动多于一个感觉系统来处理该对象的典型特征可能是有利的。拟议的研究的目标是测试是否基于对象的注意是多感官的，这样，参加到一个对象在一个感官模态的结果在其特性的优先处理无人值守的感官模态。使用Hillyard经典选择性注意范式的变体，高密度头皮记录的事件相关电位将用于评估选择性注意效应的存在。听觉、视觉和听觉-视觉对象将被呈现给受试者，并且在不同的块中，他们将被指示对听觉或视觉对象执行任务。在与任务无关的感觉模态中，对被关注对象的选择性注意效应的存在（例如，对于在视觉注意力块期间被关注对象的听觉元素）将指示选择性地关注对象导致对其组成特征的优先处理，即使当它们以被忽略的感觉模态呈现时。了解这些多感官注意过程在健康受试者中是如何工作的，最终将使我们能够考虑它们在精神分裂症和自闭症患者等临床群体中是如何崩溃的。注意力缺陷被认为是精神分裂症的一个标志;目前流行的自闭症理论是它是一种“感觉统合”障碍，尽管很少有经验数据被收集来检验这一理论。项目叙述：第一年：实验1a和1b已编程并准备好在同一组受试者上运行。第一步是招募受试者，并开始收集实验1a和1b的数据。在这一年中，将收集和全面处理全部数据集。这包括数据的统计分析和不同条件下选择性注意效应的源模型。然后，这些数据将在CNS和国际多感官研究论坛（IMRF）等科学会议上发表，我将开始撰写报告，提交给同行评审期刊。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An abundance of information enters our various sensory systems at any moment in time. Limited higher-order processing capacities require that only a sub-set of this information is processed beyond the basic sensory level. Selectively attending to locations, stimulus features, and whole objects are important ways in which we direct limited higher-order processing resources to task-relevant information. Thus far object-based attention has only been demonstrated within the visual sensory modality, showing that when attention is directed toward a single feature of an object (for example its color), the constituent task-irrelevant features of the object are also selected for preferential processing. However, objects tend to have characteristic features in multiple sensory modalities and thus when directing attention toward an object, it may well be advantageous to prime more than one sensory system to process features typical of that object. The goal of the proposed research is to test whether object-based attention is multisensory, such that attending to an object in one sensory modality results in the preferential processing of its characteristic features in unattended sensory modalities. Using a variation of the classical selective attention paradigm of Hillyard, high-density scalp recorded event-related potentials will be used to assess the presence of selective attention effects. Auditory, visual, and auditory- visual objects will be presented to subjects, and in different blocks they will be instructed to perform a task on the auditory or the visual objects. The presence of selective attention effects for attended objects presented in task-irrelevant sensory modalities (e.g., for the auditory element of the attended object during visual attention blocks) would indicate that selectively attending to an object results in the preferential processing of its constituent features even when they are presented in ignored sensory modalities. Understanding how these multisensory attentional processes work in healthy subjects will ultimately allow us to consider how they may breakdown in clinical groups such as persons with schizophrenia and autism. Attentional deficits are considered a hallmark of schizophrenia; and a popular theory of autism at present is that it is a "sensory integration" disorder, though little empirical data has been collected toward testing this theory. Project Narrative: Year one: Experiments 1a and 1b are programmed and ready to be run on the same set of subjects. The first step then will be to recruit subjects, and begin data collection for Experiments 1a and 1b. Within the course of the year the full dataset will be collected and fully processed. This includes the statistical analysis of the data and source modeling of the selective attention effects across the different conditions. These data will then be presented at scientific meetings such as CNS and the international multisensory research forum (IMRF), and I will begin to work on reports for submission to peer review journals.