Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, 16801, USA.
Lockheed Martin, Littleton, CO, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2022 Oct;84(7):2195-2204. doi: 10.3758/s13414-022-02529-9. Epub 2022 Jul 7.
There have been conflicting findings on the degree to which rapidly deployed visual attention is selective for depth, and this issue has important implications for attention models. Previous findings have attempted to find depth-based cueing effects on such attention using reaction time (RT) measures for stimuli presented in stereo goggles with a display screen. Results stemming from such approaches have been mixed, depending on whether target/distractor discrimination was required. To help clarify the existence of such depth effects, we have developed a paradigm that measures accuracy rather than RT in an immersive virtual-reality environment, providing a more appropriate context of depth. Three modified Posner Cueing paradigms were run to test for depth-specific rapid attentional selectivity. Participants fixated a cross while attempting to identify a rapidly masked black letter preceded by a red cue that could be valid in depth, side, or both. In Experiment 1a, a potent cueing effect was found for lateral cueing validity, but a weak effect was found for depth despite an extreme difference in virtual depth (1 vs. 300 m). In Experiment 1b, a near-replication of 1a, the lateral effect replicated while the depth effect did not. Finally, in Experiment 2, to increase the depth cue's effectiveness, the letter matched the cue's color, and the presentation duration was increased; however, again only a minimal depth-based cueing effect - no greater than that of Experiment 1a - was observed. Thus, we conclude that rapidly deployed attention is driven largely by spatiotopic rather than depth-based information.
关于快速部署的视觉注意力在多大程度上是针对深度选择性的，一直存在相互矛盾的发现，这个问题对注意力模型有重要的影响。以前的研究试图通过在带有显示屏的立体眼镜中呈现刺激物来使用反应时间（RT）测量来找到基于深度的提示效应。这些方法的结果因是否需要目标/干扰物辨别而有所不同。为了帮助澄清这种深度效应的存在，我们开发了一种在沉浸式虚拟现实环境中测量准确性而不是 RT 的范式，为深度提供了更合适的背景。进行了三个修改后的 Posner 线索范式来测试深度特定的快速注意力选择性。参与者在试图识别由红色线索（可以在深度、侧面或两者中有效）预先快速掩蔽的黑色字母时，固定一个十字。在实验 1a 中，尽管虚拟深度（1 与 300 米）差异很大，但发现了侧线索有效性的有力提示效应，但发现深度效应很弱。在实验 1b 中，对 1a 的近乎复制，侧效应复制，而深度效应没有。最后，在实验 2 中，为了增加线索的有效性，字母与线索的颜色相匹配，并且增加了呈现持续时间；然而，再次观察到最小的基于深度的提示效应 - 不比实验 1a 中的大 - 。因此，我们得出结论，快速部署的注意力主要由空间图式而不是基于深度的信息驱动。
