Shim Won Mok, Alvarez George A, Jiang Yuhong V
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Apr;15(2):390-7. doi: 10.3758/pbr.15.2.390.
Humans are limited in their ability to maintain multiple attentional foci. In attentive tracking of moving objects, performance declines as the number of tracked targets increases. Previous studies have interpreted such reduction in terms of a limit in the number of attentional foci. However, increasing the number of targets usually reduces spatial separation among different targets. In this study, we examine the role of target spatial separation in maintaining multiple attentional foci. Results from a multiple-object tracking task show that tracking accuracy deteriorates as the spatial separation between targets decreases. We propose that local interaction between nearby attentional foci modulates the resolution of attention, and that capacity limitation from attentive tracking originates in part from limitations in maintaining critical spacing among multiple attentional foci. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that tracking performance is limited not primarily by a number of locations, but by factors such as the spacing and speed of the targets and distractors.
人类在维持多个注意力焦点方面的能力有限。在对移动物体的注意力跟踪中，随着被跟踪目标数量的增加，表现会下降。先前的研究根据注意力焦点数量的限制来解释这种下降。然而，增加目标数量通常会减少不同目标之间的空间间隔。在本研究中，我们研究了目标空间间隔在维持多个注意力焦点中的作用。多目标跟踪任务的结果表明，随着目标之间空间间隔的减小，跟踪准确性会下降。我们提出，附近注意力焦点之间的局部相互作用调节了注意力的分辨率，并且注意力跟踪的容量限制部分源于维持多个注意力焦点之间关键间距的限制。这些发现与以下假设一致：跟踪性能受限主要不是因为位置数量，而是受目标和干扰物的间距及速度等因素影响。
