Abstract：
The learning process encompasses exploration and exploitation phases. While reinforcement learning models have revealed functional and neuroscientific distinctions between these phases, knowledge regarding how they affect visual attention while observing the external environment is limited. This study sought to elucidate the interplay between these learning phases and visual attention allocation using visual adjustment tasks combined with a two-armed bandit problem tailored to detect serial effects only when attention is dispersed across both arms. Per our findings, human participants exhibited a distinct serial effect only during the exploration phase, suggesting enhanced attention to the visual stimulus associated with the non-target arm. Remarkably, although rewards did not motivate attention dispersion in our task, during the exploration phase, individuals engaged in active observation and searched for targets to observe. This behavior highlights a unique information-seeking process in exploration that is distinct from exploitation.
摘要：
学习过程包括探索和开发阶段。虽然强化学习模型揭示了这些阶段之间的功能和神经科学区别，关于它们如何影响视觉注意力而观察外部环境的知识是有限的。这项研究试图通过视觉调整任务与双臂强盗问题相结合来阐明这些学习阶段与视觉注意力分配之间的相互作用，这些问题仅在注意力分散在两个手臂上时才可以检测串行效果。根据我们的发现,人类参与者仅在探索阶段表现出明显的序列效应，建议加强对与非目标手臂相关的视觉刺激的关注。值得注意的是,尽管奖励并不能激发我们任务中的注意力分散，在勘探阶段,个人从事主动观察，寻找目标进行观察。这种行为突出了探索中独特的信息寻求过程，与剥削不同。
