University of South Carolina.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2015 Jun;27(6):1137-45. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00769. Epub 2014 Dec 1.
During active scene perception, our eyes move from one location to another via saccadic eye movements, with the eyes fixating objects and scene elements for varying amounts of time. Much of the variability in fixation duration is accounted for by attentional, perceptual, and cognitive processes associated with scene analysis and comprehension. For this reason, current theories of active scene viewing attempt to account for the influence of attention and cognition on fixation duration. Yet almost nothing is known about the neurocognitive systems associated with variation in fixation duration during scene viewing. We addressed this topic using fixation-related fMRI, which involves coregistering high-resolution eye tracking and magnetic resonance scanning to conduct event-related fMRI analysis based on characteristics of eye movements. We observed that activation in visual and prefrontal executive control areas was positively correlated with fixation duration, whereas activation in ventral areas associated with scene encoding and medial superior frontal and paracentral regions associated with changing action plans was negatively correlated with fixation duration. The results suggest that fixation duration in scene viewing is controlled by cognitive processes associated with real-time scene analysis interacting with motor planning, consistent with current computational models of active vision for scene perception.
在主动场景感知过程中，我们的眼睛通过眼跳运动从一个位置移动到另一个位置，眼睛会在不同的时间内注视物体和场景元素。注视持续时间的变化很大程度上归因于与场景分析和理解相关的注意力、感知和认知过程。出于这个原因，当前的主动场景观看理论试图解释注意力和认知对注视持续时间的影响。然而，关于注视持续时间变化与场景观看相关的神经认知系统，我们几乎一无所知。我们使用与注视相关的 fMRI 来解决这个问题，该方法涉及将高分辨率眼动追踪和磁共振扫描进行核心配准，以便根据眼动特征进行事件相关的 fMRI 分析。我们观察到，视觉和前额叶执行控制区域的激活与注视持续时间呈正相关，而与场景编码相关的腹侧区域以及与改变行动计划相关的内侧额上回和旁中央区域的激活与注视持续时间呈负相关。结果表明，场景观看中的注视持续时间受到与实时场景分析相关的认知过程的控制，这些过程与运动计划相互作用，与主动视觉场景感知的当前计算模型一致。
