Icelandic Vision Lab, Faculty of Psychology, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland; Laboratory of Psychology (LabPsy, EA 4139), University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
Icelandic Vision Lab, Faculty of Psychology, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland; School of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation.
Cognition. 2022 Jan;218:104935. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104935. Epub 2021 Oct 18.
A critical question in visual foraging concerns the mechanisms driving the next target selection. Observers first identify a set of candidate targets, and then select the best option among these candidates. Recent evidence suggests that target selection relies on internal biases towards proximity (nearest target from the last selection), priming (target from the same category as the last selection) and value (target associated with high value). Here, we tested the role of eye movements in target selection, and notably whether disabling eye movements during target selection could affect search strategy. We asked observers to perform four foraging tasks differing by selection modality and target value. During gaze foraging, participants had to accurately fixate the targets to select them and could not anticipate the next selection with their eyes, while during mouse foraging they selected the targets with mouse clicks and were free to move their eyes. We moreover manipulated both target value and proximity. Our results revealed notable individual differences in search strategy, confirming the existence of internal biases towards value, proximity and priming. Critically, there were no differences in search strategy between mouse and gaze foraging, suggesting that disabling eye movements during target selection did not affect foraging behaviour. These results importantly suggest that overt orienting is not necessary for target selection. This study provides fundamental information for theoretical conceptions of attentional selection, and emphasizes the importance of covert attention for target selection during visual foraging.
在视觉觅食中，一个关键问题是驱动下一个目标选择的机制。观察者首先识别一组候选目标，然后在这些候选者中选择最佳选项。最近的证据表明，目标选择依赖于对接近度（上次选择的最近目标）、启动（与上次选择的同一类别目标）和价值（与高价值相关的目标）的内部偏向。在这里，我们测试了眼动在目标选择中的作用，特别是在目标选择期间禁用眼动是否会影响搜索策略。我们要求观察者执行四个不同选择模式和目标价值的觅食任务。在凝视觅食中，参与者必须准确地注视目标以选择它们，并且不能用眼睛预测下一次选择，而在鼠标觅食中，他们用鼠标点击选择目标，可以自由移动眼睛。此外，我们还操纵了目标值和接近度。我们的结果显示了搜索策略的显著个体差异，证实了对价值、接近度和启动的内部偏向的存在。至关重要的是，鼠标和凝视觅食之间的搜索策略没有差异，这表明在目标选择期间禁用眼动不会影响觅食行为。这些结果重要地表明，显性定向对于目标选择不是必需的。这项研究为注意力选择的理论概念提供了基本信息，并强调了在视觉觅食中，隐性注意对于目标选择的重要性。
