Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, French Hall, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Biology Department, 220 Morrill 3, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2021 Apr 15;224(8). doi: 10.1242/jeb.231035. Epub 2021 Apr 16.
Animals must selectively attend to relevant stimuli and avoid being distracted by unimportant stimuli. Jumping spiders (Salticidae) do this by coordinating eyes with different capabilities. Objects are examined by a pair of high-acuity principal eyes, whose narrow field of view is compensated for by retinal movements. The principal eyes overlap in field of view with motion-sensitive anterior-lateral eyes (ALEs), which direct their gaze to new stimuli. Using a salticid-specific eyetracker, we monitored the gaze direction of the principal eyes as they examined a primary stimulus. We then presented a distractor stimulus visible only to the ALEs and observed whether the principal eyes reflexively shifted their gaze to it or whether this response was flexible. Whether spiders redirected their gaze to the distractor depended on properties of both the primary and distractor stimuli. This flexibility suggests that higher-order processing occurs in the management of the attention of the principal eyes.
动物必须有选择地关注相关刺激，避免被不重要的刺激分心。跳蛛（Salticidae）通过协调具有不同能力的眼睛来做到这一点。物体由一对高分辨率的主眼进行检查，其狭窄的视野通过视网膜运动来补偿。主眼与运动敏感的前外侧眼（ALEs）在视野上重叠，前外侧眼将其注视方向指向新的刺激。使用一种特有的跳蛛眼动追踪器，我们监测了主眼在检查主要刺激时的注视方向。然后，我们呈现了一个仅在前外侧眼可见的分心刺激物，观察主眼是否会反射性地将视线转移到该刺激物上，或者这种反应是否具有灵活性。蜘蛛是否将目光转向分心刺激物取决于主刺激和分心刺激物的特性。这种灵活性表明，在主眼注意力的管理中会发生更高阶的处理。
