Belardinelli Anna, Herbort Oliver, Butz Martin V
Computer Science Department, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Germany.
Vision Res. 2015 Jan;106:47-57. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.11.003. Epub 2014 Nov 21.
Task influence has long been known to play a major role in the way our eyes scan a scene. Yet most studies focus either on visual search or on sequences of active tasks in complex real world scenarios. Few studies have contrasted the distribution of eye fixations during viewing and grasping objects. Here we address how attention is deployed when different actions are planned on objects, in contrast to when the same objects are categorized. In this respect, we are particularly interested in the role every fixation plays in the unfolding dynamics of action control. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment in which participants were shown images of real-world objects. Subjects were either to assign the displayed objects to one of two classes (categorization task), to mimic lifting (lifting task), or to mimic opening the object (opening task). Results suggest that even on simplified, two dimensional displays the eyes reveal the participant's intentions in an anticipatory fashion. For the active tasks, already the second saccade after stimulus onset was directed towards the central region between the two locations where the thumb and the rest of the fingers would be placed. An analysis of saliency at fixation locations showed that fixations in active tasks have higher correspondence with salient features than fixations in the passive task. We suggest that attention flexibly coordinates visual selection for information retrieval and motor planning, working as a gateway between three components, linking the task (action), the object (target), and the effector (hand) in an effective way.
长期以来，人们都知道任务影响在我们眼睛扫视场景的方式中起着重要作用。然而，大多数研究要么集中在视觉搜索上，要么集中在复杂现实世界场景中的一系列主动任务上。很少有研究对比观看和抓取物体时眼睛注视的分布情况。在这里，我们探讨当对物体计划不同动作时，与对相同物体进行分类时相比，注意力是如何分配的。在这方面，我们特别感兴趣的是每个注视点在动作控制展开动态过程中所起的作用。我们进行了一项眼动追踪实验，向参与者展示现实世界物体的图像。受试者要么将显示的物体分配到两个类别之一（分类任务），模仿举起（举起任务），要么模仿打开物体（打开任务）。结果表明，即使在简化的二维显示中，眼睛也能以一种预期的方式揭示参与者的意图。对于主动任务，在刺激开始后的第二个扫视眼就指向拇指和其他手指将要放置的两个位置之间的中心区域。对注视位置的显著性分析表明，主动任务中的注视与显著特征的对应性高于被动任务中的注视。我们认为，注意力灵活地协调视觉选择以进行信息检索和运动规划，作为连接任务（动作）、物体（目标）和效应器（手）的三个组件之间的通道，有效地发挥作用。
