Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2013 Aug;39(4):933-40. doi: 10.1037/a0032111. Epub 2013 Mar 11.
The present study examined the influence of holding task-relevant gaze cues in working memory during a target detection task. Gaze cues shift attention in gaze-consistent directions, even when they are irrelevant to a primary detection task. It is unclear, however, whether gaze cues need to be perceived online to elicit these effects, or how these effects may be moderated if the gaze cues are relevant to a secondary task. In Experiment 1, participants encoded a face for a subsequent memory task, after which they performed an unrelated target detection task. Critically, gaze direction was irrelevant to the target detection task, but memory for the perceived face was tested at trial conclusion. Surprisingly, participants exhibited inhibition-of-return (IOR) and not facilitation, with slower response times for the gazed-at location. In Experiments 2, presentation duration and cue-target stimulus-onset asynchrony were manipulated and we continued to observe IOR with no early facilitation. Experiment 3 revealed facilitation but not IOR when the memory task was removed; Experiment 4 also revealed facilitation when the gaze cue memory task was replaced with arrows cues. The present experiments provide an important dissociation between perceiving cues online versus holding them in memory as it relates to attentional allocation.
本研究考察了在目标检测任务中，在工作记忆中保持与任务相关的注视线索对注意的影响。注视线索会将注意力转移到与注视一致的方向，即使这些线索与主要检测任务无关。然而，目前尚不清楚注视线索是否需要在线感知才能产生这些影响，或者如果注视线索与次要任务相关，这些影响可能会如何受到调节。在实验 1 中，参与者在随后的记忆任务中对一张脸进行编码，之后他们执行了一个不相关的目标检测任务。关键是，注视方向与目标检测任务无关，但在试验结束时测试对感知到的脸的记忆。令人惊讶的是，参与者表现出返回抑制（IOR）而不是促进，注视位置的反应时间较慢。在实验 2 中，我们操纵了呈现持续时间和线索-目标刺激呈现时间间隔，并且我们继续观察到没有早期促进的 IOR。实验 3 当去除记忆任务时，我们发现了促进而不是 IOR；实验 4 当用箭头线索代替注视线索记忆任务时，也发现了促进。本实验为在线感知线索与在记忆中保持线索之间的注意分配提供了重要的区别。
