Liu Taosheng, Fuller Stuart, Carrasco Marisa
Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Pl., 8th Floor, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2006 Dec;13(6):1091-6. doi: 10.3758/bf03213931.
Selective attention enhances visual information processing, as measured by behavioral performance and neural activity. However, little is known about its effects on subjective experience. Here, we investigated the effect of transient (exogenous) attention on the appearance of visual motion, using a psychophysical procedure that directly measures appearance and controls for response bias. Observers viewed pairs of moving dot patterns and reported the motion direction of the more coherent pattern. Directing attention (via a peripheral precue) to a stimulus location increased its perceived coherence level and improved performance on a direction discrimination task. In a control experiment, we ruled out response bias by lengthening the time interval between the cue and the stimuli, so that the effect of transient attention could no longer be exerted. Our results are consistent with those of neurophysiological studies showing that attention modulates motion processing and provide evidence of a subjective perceptual correlate of attention, with a concomitant effect on performance.
选择性注意可增强视觉信息处理，这一点通过行为表现和神经活动得以衡量。然而，对于其对主观体验的影响却知之甚少。在此，我们运用一种直接测量外观并控制反应偏差的心理物理学程序，研究了瞬态（外源性）注意对视觉运动外观的影响。观察者观看成对的移动点图案，并报告连贯性更强的图案的运动方向。将注意力（通过外周提示）导向刺激位置会提高其感知到的连贯水平，并改善方向辨别任务的表现。在一项对照实验中，我们通过延长提示与刺激之间的时间间隔来排除反应偏差，这样瞬态注意的效果就无法再发挥作用。我们的结果与神经生理学研究结果一致，表明注意调节运动处理，并提供了注意的主观感知关联证据，同时对表现产生影响。
