Wong-Kee-You Audrey M B, Tsotsos John K, Adler Scott A
Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
J Vis. 2019 Jul 1;19(7):9. doi: 10.1167/19.7.9.
In adulthood, research has demonstrated that surrounding the spatial location of attentional focus is a suppressive field, resulting from top-down attention promoting the processing of relevant stimuli and inhibiting surrounding distractors (e.g., Hopf et al., 2006). It is not fully known, however, how this phenomenon manifests during development. This is an important question since attention processes are likely even more critical in development because of their potential impact on learning and day-to-day activities. The current study examined whether spatial suppression surrounding the focus of visual attention, a predicted by-product of top-down attentional modulation, is observed in development. A wide age range separated in six incremental age levels was included, allowing for a detailed examination of potential differences in the effect of attention on visual processing across development. Participants between 12 and 27 years of age exhibited spatial suppression surrounding their focus of visual attention. Their accuracy increased as a function of the separation distance between a spatially cued (and attended) target and a second target, suggesting that a ring of suppression surrounded the attended target. Attentional surround suppression was not observed in 8- to 11-years-olds, even with a longer spatial cue presentation time, demonstrating that the lack of the effect at these ages is not due to slowed attentional feedback processes. Our findings demonstrate that top-down attentional processes exhibit functional maturity beginning around 12 years of age with continuing maturation of their expression until 17, which likely impacts education and the diagnosis of visual and cognitive clinical pathologies.
在成年期，研究表明，注意力焦点的空间位置周围存在一个抑制场，这是自上而下的注意力促进相关刺激的处理并抑制周围干扰物的结果（例如，霍普夫等人，2006年）。然而，这种现象在发育过程中如何表现尚不完全清楚。这是一个重要的问题，因为注意力过程在发育中可能更为关键，因为它们可能对学习和日常活动产生影响。当前的研究考察了视觉注意力焦点周围的空间抑制，这是自上而下注意力调节的一个预测副产品，在发育过程中是否存在。研究纳入了一个广泛的年龄范围，分为六个递增的年龄组，以便详细研究注意力对视觉处理的影响在整个发育过程中的潜在差异。12至27岁的参与者在其视觉注意力焦点周围表现出空间抑制。他们的准确率随着空间提示（且被关注）的目标与第二个目标之间的距离增加而提高，这表明一个抑制环围绕着被关注的目标。在8至11岁的儿童中未观察到注意力周围抑制，即使空间提示呈现时间更长，这表明这些年龄段缺乏这种效应并非由于注意力反馈过程减慢。我们的研究结果表明，自上而下的注意力过程在大约12岁时开始表现出功能成熟，其表达持续成熟直至17岁，这可能会影响教育以及视觉和认知临床病理的诊断。
