Morgan Emma J, Ball Keira, Smith Daniel T
Durham University, Queens Campus, Stockton on Tees, UK.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2014 Jul;76(5):1265-70. doi: 10.3758/s13414-014-0716-1.
Observing a change in gaze direction triggers a reflexive shift of attention and appears to engage the eye-movement system. However, the functional relationship between social attention and this oculomotor activation is unclear. One extremely influential hypothesis is that the preparation of a saccadic eye movement is necessary and sufficient for a covert, reflexive shift of attention (the premotor theory of attention; Rizzolatti et al., 1994). Surprisingly, this theory has not been directly tested with respect to reflexive gaze cueing. In order to address this issue, gaze cueing, peripheral cueing, and arrow cueing were examined under conditions in which some stimuli appeared at locations that could not become the goal of a saccadic eye movement. It was observed that peripheral cues failed to elicit reflexive attentional orienting when targets appeared beyond the range of eye movements. Similarly, nonpredictive arrow cues were ineffective when targets could not become the goal of a saccade. In contrast, significant gaze-cueing effects were still observed when targets were beyond the range of eye movements. These data demonstrate that the mechanisms involved in gaze cueing are dissociated from those involved in exogenous orienting to peripheral or arrow cues. Furthermore, the findings suggest that, unlike peripheral cueing and reflexive arrow cueing, gaze cueing is independent of oculomotor control. We conclude that the premotor theory does not offer a compelling explanation for gaze cueing.
观察到注视方向的变化会引发注意力的反射性转移，并且似乎会激活眼动系统。然而，社会注意力与这种眼动激活之间的功能关系尚不清楚。一个极具影响力的假说是，扫视眼动的准备对于注意力的隐蔽性、反射性转移是必要且充分的（注意力的运动前理论；里佐拉蒂等人，1994年）。令人惊讶的是，这一理论尚未针对反射性注视提示进行直接测试。为了解决这个问题，在一些刺激出现在无法成为扫视眼动目标的位置的条件下，对注视提示、外周提示和箭头提示进行了研究。结果发现，当目标出现在眼动范围之外时，外周提示无法引发反射性注意力定向。同样，当目标无法成为扫视目标时，非预测性箭头提示也无效。相比之下，当目标超出眼动范围时，仍能观察到显著的注视提示效应。这些数据表明，注视提示所涉及的机制与对外周或箭头提示的外源性定向所涉及的机制是分离的。此外，研究结果表明，与外周提示和反射性箭头提示不同，注视提示独立于眼动控制。我们得出结论，运动前理论并不能为注视提示提供令人信服的解释。
