Robertson Joanne S, Forte Jason D, Nicholls Michael E R
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia,
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2015 Apr;77(3):830-43. doi: 10.3758/s13414-014-0813-1.
The ability to navigate accurately through the environment and avoid obstacles is essential for effective interactions with the environment. It is therefore surprising that systematic rightward errors are observed when neurologically intact participants navigate through doorways-most likely due to the operation of biases in spatial attention. These rightward errors may arise due to the operation of an extinction-like process, whereby participants overattend to the left doorpost and collide with the right one. Alternatively, rightward biases might reflect a bisection bias, such that the extrapersonal nature of the aperture causes participants to misbisect the aperture slightly to the right of true center. Because eye movements and spatial attention are closely related, in this study we used eyetracking to test the extinction and bisection models in a remote wheelchair navigation task. University students (n = 16) made rightward errors when navigating the wheelchair through a doorway, and fixated more frequently toward the right side of the aperture throughout the trial. These results are inconsistent with an extinction-based theory of navigation asymmetry, which predicts a leftward bias in eye position due to participants overattending to the left side of the doorway. Instead, the observed rightward bias in eye movements strongly supports a bisection-based theory of navigation asymmetry, whereby participants mentally "mark" the midpoint of a doorway toward the right and then head toward that point, resulting in rightward deviations. The rightward nature of participants' navigation errors and eye positions is consistent with the existence of a rightward attentional bias for extrapersonal stimuli.
在环境中准确导航并避开障碍物的能力对于与环境进行有效互动至关重要。因此，令人惊讶的是，当神经功能正常的参与者穿过门口时会出现系统性的向右偏差——这很可能是由于空间注意力偏差的作用。这些向右偏差可能是由于类似消退过程的运作而产生的，即参与者过度关注左门柱并与右门柱碰撞。或者，向右偏差可能反映了一种二等分偏差，即孔径的身外性质导致参与者将孔径的中点误判在真实中心右侧。由于眼动和空间注意力密切相关，在本研究中，我们使用眼动追踪技术在远程轮椅导航任务中测试消退模型和二等分模型。大学生（n = 16）在驾驶轮椅穿过门口时出现了向右偏差，并且在整个试验过程中更频繁地注视孔径的右侧。这些结果与基于消退的导航不对称理论不一致，该理论预测由于参与者过度关注门口左侧，眼位会出现向左偏差。相反，观察到的眼动向右偏差有力地支持了基于二等分的导航不对称理论，即参与者在心理上把门口的中点“标记”在右侧，然后朝着那个点前进，从而导致向右偏差。参与者导航错误和眼位的向右性质与身外刺激存在向右注意力偏差相一致。
