以雙眼間的無意識物體整合以及物體為基注意力探討意識作用的單位

Abstract

意識一直是令人著迷的議題，各種理論和說法無不對於意識歷程的功能以及如何產生意識狀態等問題提出見解和支持性證據。過去研究認為意識和注意力依賴共同的物體選擇機制—注意力所選擇的物體也會被意識到。本研究欲探討意識歷程是否與注意力一樣是以物體為基本單位。具體研究策略為：將一個能夠影響注意力分佈的完整物體拆解成不同部分並分別呈現於雙眼使其分別為可見和不可見。若物體的互補部分能整合成完整物體，那麼受試者的注意分佈便會受到影響，從而體現於測量指標中。本論文將以三個研究使用由不同層次訊息定義的物體來檢驗互補的物體是否能夠在雙眼間整合。研究一使用由完形心理學的連續律所定義的物體、研究二使用由非形式填整（amodal completion）所填補成的物體，研究三則使用雙字詞藉由語意所定義的物體。實驗結果顯示注意力選擇歷程以及受試者主觀意識在本論文所定義的功能性物體(雙眼間整合而成的物體)上有分離的現象：當注意力能夠選擇此功能性物體並影響作業表現時，此功能性物體的可見與不可見部分仍然維持其原本的可見性。據此，我們能夠得知意識和注意力並非同樣以物體為作用的基本單位。此項發現從訊息處理的角度提供了進一步將意識和注意力予以分離的證據。

Consciousness has been a fascinating issue that many theories have been trying to elucidate the function of consciousness and how it emerges. Past studies showed that consciousness and attention share a common mechanism in selecting object—attended objects are consciously perceived as well. In this thesis, we examined whether consciousness is also based on objects just like attention is. Specifically, objects that can affect the distribution of attention are decomposed and presented as visible and invisible parts in two eyes. If complementary parts of the object can integrate, participants’ attention will be affected and reflected on the measurement. In this thesis, three studies using objects defined by stimuli of different levels were carried out to examine whether complementary objects can be integrated between the eyes. Study 1 used objects defined by physical contour, Study 2 used objects defined by amodal completion, and Study 3 used objects defined by semantics in a two-character Chinese word. The results showed that attentional selection and participants’ subjective awareness dissociates on the functional objects (objects integrated between the eyes): while one’s attention can select such objects and affect task performance accordingly, the visible and invisible parts of these objects remained the same. Based on these findings, we conclude that consciousness and attention do not operate on the same basis—the object. This finding provides evidence for dissociation between consciousness and attention in terms of information processing.