title: Mechanisms and representations of language-mediated visual attention.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Falk
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huettig
authors.forename: Ramesh Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Christian N L
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Olivers