Spence Charles, Lee Jae, Van der Stoep Nathan
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK.
Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Eur J Neurosci. 2020 Mar;51(5):1137-1150. doi: 10.1111/ejn.13733. Epub 2017 Nov 6.
To date, most of the research on spatial attention has focused on probing people's responses to stimuli presented in frontal space. That is, few researchers have attempted to assess what happens in the space that is currently unseen (essentially rear space). In a sense, then, 'out of sight' is, very much, 'out of mind'. In this review, we highlight what is presently known about the perception and processing of sensory stimuli (focusing on sounds) whose source is not currently visible. We briefly summarize known differences in the localizability of sounds presented from different locations in 3D space, and discuss the consequences for the crossmodal attentional and multisensory perceptual interactions taking place in various regions of space. The latest research now clearly shows that the kinds of crossmodal interactions that take place in rear space are very often different in kind from those that have been documented in frontal space. Developing a better understanding of how people respond to unseen sound sources in naturalistic environments by integrating findings emerging from multiple fields of research will likely lead to the design of better warning signals in the future. This review highlights the need for neuroscientists interested in spatial attention to spend more time researching what happens (in terms of the covert and overt crossmodal orienting of attention) in rear space.
迄今为止，大多数关于空间注意力的研究都集中在探究人们对呈现于前方空间的刺激的反应。也就是说，很少有研究者尝试评估在当前未被看到的空间（本质上是后方空间）中会发生什么。从某种意义上讲，“看不见”很大程度上就是“想不到”。在这篇综述中，我们重点介绍了目前已知的关于来源当前不可见的感官刺激（以声音为例）的感知和处理情况。我们简要总结了从三维空间中不同位置呈现的声音在可定位性方面的已知差异，并讨论了在空间各个区域发生的跨模态注意力和多感官感知交互的影响。最新研究清楚地表明，在后方空间发生的跨模态交互类型往往与在前方空间记录的交互类型截然不同。通过整合多个研究领域的新发现，更好地理解人们在自然环境中对不可见声源的反应，可能会在未来带来更好的警告信号设计。这篇综述强调，对空间注意力感兴趣的神经科学家需要花更多时间研究在后方空间中（就注意力的隐蔽和公开跨模态定向而言）会发生什么。
