Gaspelin Nicholas, Luck Steven J
Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York.
Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
J Cogn. 2018;1(1). doi: 10.5334/joc.28. Epub 2018 May 14.
Attention researchers have long debated the roles of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in controlling attention. Theeuwes (2018) has argued that that top-down control is much less common than typically assumed and that a third mechanism-selection history-plays an underappreciated role in guiding visual attention. Although Theeuwes has made a strong case for the importance of selection history, his arguments for a limited role of top-down mechanisms involve conflating the terms "top-down" and "voluntary." Cognitive psychologists typically use the term "top-down" processing to refer to any perceptual phenomenon that is influenced by context, learning, or expectation, which would include selection history. This highlights a broad problem in attention capture research: The terms used to describe attentional control are often poorly defined, and much current debate seems to be related to the meaning of words. To move forward in understanding the actual mechanisms of attentional control, we must agree on what terms such as "top-down" and "bottom-up" actually mean.
长期以来，研究人员一直在争论自上而下和自下而上机制在控制注意力方面所起的作用。特乌韦斯（2018年）认为，自上而下的控制远比通常认为的要少见，并且第三种机制——选择历史——在引导视觉注意力方面发挥着未得到充分重视的作用。尽管特乌韦斯有力地论证了选择历史的重要性，但他关于自上而下机制作用有限的论点涉及将“自上而下”和“自愿”这两个术语混为一谈。认知心理学家通常用“自上而下”加工来指代任何受情境、学习或期望影响的感知现象，这其中包括选择历史。这凸显了注意力捕获研究中的一个普遍问题：用于描述注意力控制的术语往往定义不明确，当前的许多争论似乎都与词语的含义有关。为了在理解注意力控制的实际机制方面取得进展，我们必须就“自上而下”和“自下而上”等术语的实际含义达成一致。
