Zehetleitner Michael, Hegenloh Michael, Müller Hermann J
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
J Vis. 2011 Jan 31;11(1):24. doi: 10.1167/11.1.24.
Visual salience maps are assumed to mediate target selection decisions in a motor-unspecific manner; accordingly, modulations of salience influence yes/no target detection or left/right localization responses in manual key-press search tasks, as well as ocular or skeletal movements to the target. Although widely accepted, this core assumption is based on little psychophysical evidence. At least four modulations of salience are known to influence the speed of visual search for feature singletons: (i) feature contrast, (ii) cross-trial dimension sequence and (iii) semantic pre-cueing of the target dimension, and (iv) dimensional target redundancy. If salience guides also manual pointing movements, their initiation latencies (and durations) should be affected by the same four manipulations of salience. Four experiments, each examining one of these manipulations, revealed this to be the case. Thus, these effects are seen independently of the motor response required to signal the perceptual decision (e.g., directed manual pointing as well as simple yes/no detection responses). This supports the notion of a motor-unspecific salience map, which guides covert attention as well as overt eye and hand movements.
视觉显著性图被认为以一种与运动无关的方式介导目标选择决策；因此，显著性的调制会影响手动按键搜索任务中的是/否目标检测或左/右定位反应，以及对目标的眼部或骨骼运动。尽管这一核心假设被广泛接受，但它几乎没有心理物理学证据支持。已知至少有四种显著性调制会影响对特征单一目标的视觉搜索速度：（i）特征对比度，（ii）跨试验维度序列，（iii）目标维度的语义预提示，以及（iv）维度目标冗余。如果显著性也指导手动指向运动，那么它们的起始潜伏期（和持续时间）应该会受到相同的四种显著性操纵的影响。四个实验，每个实验检验其中一种操纵，结果表明情况确实如此。因此，这些效应的出现与传达知觉决策所需的运动反应无关（例如，定向手动指向以及简单的是/否检测反应）。这支持了一种与运动无关的显著性图的概念，它指导隐蔽注意以及明显的眼部和手部运动。
