Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
J Neurosci. 2012 Jan 25;32(4):1408-12. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4185-11.2012.
Objects in the world do not have a surface that can be objectively labeled the "front." We impose this designation on one surface of an object according to several cues, including which surface is associated with the most task-relevant information or the direction of motion of an object. However, when these cues are competing, weak, or absent, we can also flexibly assign one surface as the front. One possibility is that this assignment is guided by the location of the "spotlight" of selection, where the selected region becomes the front. Here we used an electrophysiological correlate to show a direct temporal link between object structure assignments and the spatial locus of selection. We found that when human participants viewed a shape whose front and back surfaces were ambiguous, seeing a given surface as front was associated with selectively attending to that location. In Experiment 1, this pattern occurred during directed rapid (every 1 s) switches in structural percepts. In Experiment 2, this pattern occurred during spontaneous reversals, from 900 ms before to 600 ms after the reported percept. These results suggest that the distribution of selective attention might guide the organization of object structure.
世界中的物体没有一个可以客观地被标记为“正面”的表面。我们根据几个线索将这个指定赋予物体的一个表面，包括哪个表面与最相关的任务信息相关联，或者物体的运动方向。然而，当这些线索相互竞争、较弱或不存在时，我们也可以灵活地将一个表面指定为正面。一种可能性是，这种分配是由选择的“聚光灯”的位置指导的，被选中的区域成为正面。在这里，我们使用一种电生理相关性来显示物体结构分配和选择的空间位置之间的直接时间联系。我们发现，当人类参与者观察一个正面和背面表面都不确定的形状时，将某个表面视为正面与选择性地关注该位置有关。在实验 1 中，这种模式发生在结构感知的定向快速（每 1 秒）切换期间。在实验 2 中，这种模式发生在自发反转期间，从报告的感知前 900 毫秒到后 600 毫秒。这些结果表明，选择性注意的分布可能指导物体结构的组织。
