神经科学与心理学2019pnas.org
将他人视觉注意力隐式建模为不可见光束
Implicit model of other people’s visual attention as an invisible beam
进阶 · 约 35 分钟读完前置知识：实验心理学基础、统计推断、视觉注意
导读
这篇 PNAS 论文研究人们是否在直觉上把他人视觉注意建模成从眼睛发出的“不可见光束”。实验让被试观看一个人脸看向或不看向桌上矩形，并判断矩形如何倾斜才能平衡；结果发现注视方向会让平衡判断出现偏向，支持人们对视觉注意持有类似外射光束的隐含模型，但效应幅度很小。
HN 关注点：把“目光是否像光束/力”的古老外射视觉理论与现代心理物理实验联系起来，讨论焦点包括效应量是否太小以及日常经验是否支持。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：质疑 1 补充 1 亲历 2
质疑质疑实验效应量过小，不足以支持强结论。
我仍持怀疑态度。这里的效应量非常小。实验给被试呈现桌上一个矩形和一张人脸，人脸从左侧或右侧看向或不看向矩形，然后让被试算出矩形需要倾斜多少角度才能在一个点上完美平衡。其想法是：如果人们把视觉建模成眼睛发出的力束，就会认为需要让矩形略微朝眼睛方向倾斜来抵消这个力。而脸看与不看造成的差异小于 1 度旋转。他们也没说矩形有多少像素高；说不定顶部位置只差 1 个像素。
jstanley查看英文原文
I remain skeptical. The effect size here is really small. They presented subjects with an image of a rectangle sitting on a table with a human face either looking at it or not looking at it, from either the left or the right, and then asked them to work out what angle the rectangle would need to be tilted at to be perfectly balanced on one point. The idea being that if people model vision as a force beam emitted from the eyes, then people will assume that that force needs to be countered by leaning the rectangle slightly towards the eyes. The difference between a face looking at it or not looking at it was less than 1 degree of rotation[0]. They also don't say how many pixels tall the rectangle was. For all we know it might only be 1 pixel different in the position at the top. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/1/328/F2.large.jpg
补充补充古代“眼睛发光/外射”视觉理论，并认为现代研究在心理层面与之呼应。
公元前五世纪，恩培多克勒提出万物由火、气、土、水四元素组成；他认为阿佛洛狄忒用四元素造出人眼，并在眼中点燃火，使光从眼睛射出从而产生视觉。若果真如此，人夜里应能和白天一样看见，因此他又提出眼睛射出的光线会与太阳等光源的光线相互作用。附言：我觉得很有意思的是，如果把古代思想家带到今天、教给他们死后科学的新发现，他们在某种意义上仍会坚持最初观点。现代物理学的“atom”（词源是“不可分”）就是明显例子，我也能想象恩培多克勒说：至少在视觉的心理层面，我并没有完全跑偏。
GorgeRonde查看英文原文
> In the fifth century BC, Empedocles postulated that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#Historical_theories_about_light,_in_chronological_order P.S. : I really find it fascinating that, provided we could bring these ancient thinkers to our times and teach them the discoveries science has made since they died, they would still hold their initial view in some way. This is obvious with what modern physics calls 'atom' (etymologically: 'not divisible'), and I could see Empedocle saying "At least, I was not totally off the tracks when it comes to what sight is psychologically".
亲历亲历：把视网膜理解为感光组织后，视觉外射的直觉消失了。
尽管我很了解眼睛解剖和视觉大体原理，我内在的视觉概念仍有点像标题描述的那样。后来我意识到，视网膜更像覆盖着光蕾的专门舌头，我对视觉的感受随之大变：突然有了一种盲的感觉——我只能看到自己眼内视杆、视锥末端那么远，之外的一切只是把光子排好队，使它们到达时能被理解。
jcims查看英文原文
Even though I had a very good understanding of the anatomy of the eye and largely how vision works, my internal concept of vision was still kind of like what is described in the title. Then I realized your retinas are more like a specialized tongue covered with lightbuds, and my sense of vision changed dramatically. I suddenly had a sense of blindness, that I could see only as far as the tips of the rods and cones in my eye, and everything beyond that was just lining up the photons so they made sense when they arrived.
亲历亲历支持他人会依据目光方向预判移动路径。
我以前穿过迎面人群很困难，总会和某人陷入“跳舞”般的僵局，两人都搞不清对方要往哪走。后来我发现了穿过行人的一个奇怪技巧：盯着人群中一条路看。人们会下意识给你让路，好像他们更注意你的眼睛，而不是你身体实际移动的方向。
dorkwood查看英文原文
I always used to find it difficult to walk through a crowd of oncoming people. I'd inevitably get caught in a "dance" with somebody as we tried to figure out which way the other person was trying to go. My problems were greatly alleviated once I figured out this one weird trick for navigating through pedestrians: stare a path through the crowd. People will subconsciously move out of your way. It's as if they pay more attention to your eyes than the actual direction your body is moving.
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