Department of Neuroscience, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2012 Jun;38(3):576-9. doi: 10.1037/a0027406. Epub 2012 Mar 5.
The ability to ignore task-irrelevant information and overcome distraction is central to our ability to efficiently carry out a number of tasks. One factor shown to strongly influence distraction is the perceptual load of the task being performed; as the perceptual load of task-relevant information processing increases, the likelihood that task-irrelevant information will be processed and interfere with task performance decreases. However, it has also been demonstrated that other attentional factors play an important role in whether or not distracting information affects performance. Specifically, object-based attention can modulate the extent of distractor processing, leaving open the possibility that object-based attention mechanisms may directly modulate the way in which perceptual load affects distractor processing. Here, we show that object-based attention dominates perceptual load to determine the extent of task-irrelevant information processing, with distractors affecting performance only when they are contained within the same object as the task-relevant search display. These results suggest that object-based attention effects play a central role in selective attention regardless of the perceptual load of the task being performed.
忽略任务无关信息和克服干扰的能力是我们高效完成多项任务的核心能力。有一个因素被证明会强烈影响干扰，那就是任务相关信息处理的感知负载；随着任务相关信息处理的感知负载增加，任务无关信息被处理并干扰任务表现的可能性降低。然而，也有研究表明，其他注意力因素在分散信息是否影响表现方面起着重要作用。具体来说，基于对象的注意力可以调节分散处理的程度，这使得基于对象的注意力机制可能直接调节感知负载影响分散处理的方式成为可能。在这里，我们表明基于对象的注意力支配着感知负载来确定任务无关信息处理的程度，只有当分散注意力的刺激与任务相关的搜索显示包含在同一对象中时，它们才会影响表现。这些结果表明，基于对象的注意力效应在选择性注意中起着核心作用，而不管执行的任务的感知负载如何。
