Pauszek Joseph R, Gibson Bradley S
Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2018 Aug;44(8):1199-1215. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000527. Epub 2018 Apr 30.
Here we propose a rational analysis account of voluntary symbolic attention control-the Least Costs Hypothesis (LCH)-that construes voluntary control as a decision between intentional cue use and unguided search. Consistent with the LCH, the present study showed that this decision is sensitive to variations in cue processing efficiency. In Experiment 1, observers demonstrated a robust preference for using "easy-to-process" arrow cues but not "hard-to-process" spatial word cues to satisfy an easy visual search goal; Experiment 2 showed that this preference persisted even when the temporal costs of cue processing were neutralized. Experiment 3 showed that observers reported this cue type preference outside the context of a speeded task, and Experiment 4 showed empirical measures of this bias to be relatively stable over the course of the task. Together with previous evidence suggesting that observers' decision between intentional cue use and unguided search is also influenced by variations in unguided search efficiency, these findings suggest that voluntary symbolic attention control is mediated by ongoing metacognitive evaluations of demand that are sensitive to perceived variations in the time, effort, and opportunity costs associated with each course of action. Thus, voluntary symbolic attention control is far more complex than previously held. (PsycINFO Database Record
在此，我们提出一种关于自愿性符号注意控制的理性分析解释——最低成本假设（LCH），该假设将自愿控制解释为在有意使用线索和无引导搜索之间的一种决策。与LCH一致，本研究表明，这种决策对线索处理效率的变化很敏感。在实验1中，观察者表现出强烈倾向于使用“易于处理”的箭头线索，而不是“难以处理”的空间词线索来完成一个简单的视觉搜索目标；实验2表明，即使线索处理的时间成本被抵消，这种偏好仍然存在。实验3表明，观察者在快速任务情境之外也报告了这种线索类型偏好，实验4表明，在任务过程中这种偏差的实证测量相对稳定。与之前表明观察者在有意使用线索和无引导搜索之间的决策也受到无引导搜索效率变化影响的证据一起，这些发现表明，自愿性符号注意控制是由对需求的持续元认知评估所介导的，这种评估对与每种行动过程相关的感知到的时间、努力和机会成本的变化很敏感。因此，自愿性符号注意控制比之前认为的要复杂得多。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》
