Mechanisms and representations of language-mediated visual attention

作者：Huettig Falk^*; Mishre Ramesh Kumar; Oliver Christian N L

来源：Frontiers in Psychology, 2012, 3: 394.

DOI：10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00394

• language
• attention
• vision
• memory
• eye movements

The experimental investigation of language-mediated visual attention is a promising way to study the interaction of the cognitive systems involved in language, vision, attention, and memory. Here we highlight four challenges for a mechanistic account of this oculomotor behavior: the levels of representation at which language-derived and vision-derived representations are integrated; attentional mechanisms; types of memory; and the degree of individual and group differences. Central points in our discussion are (a) the possibility that local microcircuitries involving feedforward and feedback loops instantiate a common representational substrate of linguistic and non-linguistic information and attention; and (b) that an explicit working memory may be central to explaining interactions between language and visual attention. We conclude that a synthesis of further experimental evidence from a variety of fields of inquiry and the testing of distinct, non-student, participant populations will prove to be critical.

• 出版日期2012