Garner Kelly G, Lovell-Kane Michelle, Carroll Luke, Dux Paul E
The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, AU.
J Cogn. 2022 Jun 24;5(1):38. doi: 10.5334/joc.229. eCollection 2022.
The visual world provides a myriad of cues that can be used to direct information processing. How does the brain integrate predictive information from disparate sources to modify visual priorities, and are combination strategies consistent across individuals? Previous evidence shows that cues predictive of the value of a visually guided task (incentive value) and cues that signal where targets may occur (spatial certainty) act independently to bias attention. Anticipatory accounts propose that both cues are encoded into an attentional priority map, whereas the counterfactual account argues that incentive value cues instead induce a reactive encoding of losses based on the direction of attention. We adjudicate between these alternatives and further determine whether there are individual differences in how attentional cues are encoded. 149 participants viewed two coloured placeholders that specified the potential value of correctly identifying an imminent target. Prior to the target's presentation, an endogenous spatial cue indicated the target's likely location. The anticipatory and counterfactual accounts were used to motivate parametric regressors that were compared in their explanatory power of the data, at the group level and on data stratified by a clustering algorithm. Clustering revealed 2 subtypes; whereas all individuals use spatial certainty cues a subset does not use incentive value cues. When incentive value cues are used their influence reflects a counterfactual loss function. The data support the counterfactual account and show that theories of motivated attention must account for the non-uniform influence of incentive value on visual priorities.
视觉世界提供了无数可用于引导信息处理的线索。大脑如何整合来自不同来源的预测信息以改变视觉优先级，以及组合策略在个体间是否一致？先前的证据表明，预测视觉引导任务价值的线索（激励价值）和指示目标可能出现位置的线索（空间确定性）独立起作用以偏向注意力。预期理论认为这两种线索都被编码到注意力优先级地图中，而反事实理论则认为激励价值线索反而会根据注意力方向对损失进行反应性编码。我们对这些观点进行评判，并进一步确定在注意力线索的编码方式上是否存在个体差异。149名参与者观看了两个彩色占位符，它们指定了正确识别即将出现的目标的潜在价值。在目标呈现之前，一个内源性空间线索指示了目标可能的位置。预期理论和反事实理论被用于激发参数回归器，在群体层面以及通过聚类算法分层的数据上比较它们对数据的解释力。聚类揭示了两种亚型；虽然所有人都使用空间确定性线索，但有一部分人不使用激励价值线索。当使用激励价值线索时，它们的影响反映了一种反事实损失函数。数据支持反事实理论，并表明动机性注意力理论必须考虑激励价值对视觉优先级的非均匀影响。
