Attention and Memory

这项拟议的研究的目标是发展一种关于注意力和记忆之间关系的数学理论，解释注意力如何控制信息流进入和流出记忆，以及记忆如何影响被注意的内容和如何被注意。这一理论是之前两种理论的结合，一种是解决注意力问题，另一种是解决记忆提取问题。以前的两种理论都侧重于处理速度。注意力理论认为，世界上不同的刺激“竞相”成为注意力的对象。第一个完成比赛的人吸引了人们的注意。提取理论类似，认为记忆中不同的痕迹会竞相成为被提取的那一个。第一个完成的将被检索。新理论将这两种方法结合在一起，将它们解释为对同一过程的不同视角。这一新理论对包括注意力、记忆和分类在内的多个领域的处理速度和反应概率做出了定量预测。它意义重大，因为它整合了以前的方法，建立在它们的成功基础上，并提供了关于人类认知的很大一部分的完整理论。

The goal of the proposed research is to develop a mathematical theory of the relationship between attention and memory, to explain how attention controls the flow of information into and out of memory, and how memory influences what is attended and how it is attended. The theory is a combination of two previous theories, one addressing attention and one addressing memory retrieval. Both of previous theories focus on the speed of processing. The attention theory argues that different stimuli in the world `race` to become objects of attention. The first one to finish the race captures attention. The retrieval theory is similar, arguing that different traces in memory race to become the one to be retrieved. The first one to finish gets retrieved. The new theory combines these two approaches, interpreting them as different perspectives on the same process. The new theory makes quantitative predictions about the speed of processing and the probability of responding in a number of domains, including attention, memory, and categorization. It is significant because it integrates previous approaches, building on their successes, and providing an integrated theory of a large part of human cognition.