Attention and distraction in the modular visual system of a jumping spider

Animals must selectively attend to relevant stimuli and avoid being distracted by unimportant stimuli. Jumping spiders (Salticidae) do this by coordinating eyes with different capabilities. Objects are examined by a pair of high-acuity principal eyes, whose narrow field of view is compensated for by retinal movements. The principal eyes overlap in field of view with motion-sensitive anterior-lateral eyes (ALEs), which direct their gaze to new stimuli. Using a salticid-specific eyetracker, we monitored the gaze direction of the principal eyes as they examined a primary stimulus.We then presented a distractor stimulus visible only to the ALEs and observed whether the principal eyes reflexively shifted their gaze to it or whether this response was flexible. Whether spiders redirected their gaze to the distractor depended on properties of both the primary and distractor stimuli. This flexibility suggests that higher-order processing occurs

动物需选择性地聚焦相关刺激物，同时规避无关刺激对注意力的干扰。跳蛛（Salticidae）可通过协调功能各异的眼部实现这一行为：一对具备高视觉敏锐度的主眼（principal eyes）负责对物体进行精细检视，这类眼睛的视野范围较为狭窄，需通过视网膜运动弥补这一视野局限。主眼的视野与对运动敏感的前侧眼（anterior-lateral eyes，ALEs）存在重叠，前侧眼可将视线引导至新出现的刺激目标。我们采用专为跳蛛开发的眼动追踪仪，监测了主眼在检视主要刺激物时的视线方向。随后我们向蜘蛛呈现仅能被前侧眼感知的干扰刺激物，并观察主眼是会反射性地将视线转向该干扰物，还是会展现出灵活的视线调节反应。蜘蛛是否会将视线转向干扰物，取决于主要刺激物与干扰刺激物两者的属性特征。这种行为灵活性表明，跳蛛存在高阶信息处理过程。