Ghirardelli T G, Egeth H E
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Percept Psychophys. 1998 Jul;60(5):826-38. doi: 10.3758/bf03206066.
Goal-directed and stimulus-driven control of attention was examined in a visual texture segregation task. Recent published reports have debated the existence and efficiency of goal-directed guidance of attention. Some of this research has focused on the apparent stimulus-driven attentional priority given to salient distractors, even when they are known to be irrelevant to the task. In the present study, subjects searched a texture array for targets defined along one dimension. These displays also included distractors created by variation in an irrelevant dimension. Targets were of three different overall shapes. On each trial, distractors could be the same shape as the target or one of the other two shapes. In two experiments subjects were informed of the overall shape of the target prior to stimulus presentation. In these experiments, distractors that did not match the overall shape of the target caused less interference than distractors that matched the target's shape. In the third experiment, subjects were not informed of the overall shape of the target. In this experiment all distractors caused roughly equal interference. The results of these experiments demonstrate that if subjects are given information about the overall shape of the target, they are able to use this information to reduce interference from distractors that do not match the overall target shape. While acknowledging some stimulus-driven interference, this illustrates a previously unexplored source of goal-directed guidance that can reduce interfering effects of even salient distractors and argues against purely stimulus-driven control of attention.
在一项视觉纹理分离任务中，对注意力的目标导向控制和刺激驱动控制进行了研究。最近发表的报告对注意力目标导向引导的存在性和效率展开了争论。其中一些研究聚焦于即使已知显著干扰物与任务无关，它们仍在刺激驱动下获得的明显注意力优先级。在本研究中，受试者在纹理阵列中搜索沿一个维度定义的目标。这些显示还包括由无关维度变化产生的干扰物。目标有三种不同的整体形状。在每次试验中，干扰物可能与目标形状相同，或者是其他两种形状之一。在两个实验中，在呈现刺激之前告知受试者目标的整体形状。在这些实验中，与目标形状不匹配的干扰物比与目标形状匹配的干扰物造成的干扰更小。在第三个实验中，未告知受试者目标的整体形状。在这个实验中，所有干扰物造成的干扰大致相等。这些实验结果表明，如果向受试者提供关于目标整体形状的信息，他们能够利用此信息减少来自与目标整体形状不匹配干扰物的干扰。虽然承认存在一些刺激驱动的干扰，但这说明了一种此前未被探索的目标导向引导源，它可以减少甚至显著干扰物的干扰作用，并反对纯粹的刺激驱动注意力控制。
