Attention and Performance Meeting to be held July 1-7, 2002 in Erice, Sicily

注意力和表现会议摘要在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，初级研究人员将获得参加国际注意力和表现研究协会（IASAP）第20次会议的资金。 这次会议将于7月1日至7日在西西里的埃里切举行，并将讨论视觉认知的功能性脑成像的主题。功能性脑成像在成本、增长率和公众可见度方面可能已经超过了认知科学中的所有其他技术。但是，这套新技术对人类认知的研究到底有多大贡献呢？什么时候大脑成像的发现限制了认知理论？我们同情那些旁观者，他们对脑成像对认知科学的贡献感到失望。事实上，许多早期的成像研究对认知感兴趣的研究人员几乎没有什么帮助。然而，我们受到最近的结果的鼓舞，并希望一个新的时代正在开始，功能性脑成像可能会实现其作为认知研究的强大工具的潜力。本次会议的目标是通过解决功能性脑成像是否、何时以及如何限制人类认知理论来解决所有这些问题。我们选择围绕视觉认知这一特定主题进行讨论，最近最好的成像工作都是在视觉认知领域进行的。我们选择了世界上65位顶尖的研究人员，他们要么从事视觉认知的成像工作，要么在密切相关的领域拥有专业知识，这些领域的理解对我们推进大脑成像研究至关重要（例如，认知心理学、单单元记录、计算建模）。在会议上，这些研究人员将展示他们实验室的最新结果，并讨论成像可以和不能为认知问题提供答案的方式。会议将包括模块化，视觉对象表示，发展和可塑性，视觉注意力和感觉运动整合的会议。尽一切努力让少数民族、妇女和研究人员在职业生涯的早期阶段参与进来。 我们预计，有几个因素将保证这次会议不仅对与会者，而且对整个领域产生广泛影响。 这些因素包括IASAP的声望，许多与会者的高知名度，以及每次注意力表现会议发表大量优秀和广泛引用的文章的悠久传统。

Attention and Performance MeetingABSTRACTWith National Science Foundation support, junior researchers will be provided the funds to participate in the XXth meeting of the International Association for the Study of Attention and Performance (IASAP). This meeting will be held from July 1-7 in Erice, Sicily, and will address the topic of Functional Brain Imaging of Visual Cognition. Functional brain imaging may have by now surpassed all other techniques in cognitive science in terms of expense, growth rate, and public visibility. But how much has this new set of techniques actually contributed to the study of human cognition? When if ever has a finding from brain imaging constrained a cognitive theory? We are sympathetic to those who have watched from the sidelines and felt underwhelmed by the contributions of brain imaging to cognitive science. Many of the early imaging studies in fact had little to offer researchers interested in cognition. However, we are encouraged by more recent results and hopeful that a new era is beginning in which functional brain imaging may realize its potential as a powerful tool for the study of cognition. It is the goal of this meeting to tackle all of these issues by addressing whether, when, and how functional brain imaging can constrain theories of human cognition. We have chosen to focus our discussions around the specific topic of visual cognition, where much of the best recent imaging work has been carried out. We have selected 65 of the top researchers in the world who either do imaging work on visual cognition, or who have expertise in a closely related field the understanding of which is critical for our advancement of brain imaging research (e.g., cognitive psychology, single-unit recording, computational modeling). At the meeting, these researchers will present the latest results from their labs and discuss the ways in which imaging can and cannot provide answers to cognitive questions. The meeting will include sessions on modularity, visual object representation, development and plasticity, visual attention, and sensorimotor integration. Every effort was made to include minorities, women, and researchers at early stages of their careers. We anticipate that several factors will guarantee that this meeting will have a broad impact not only on those attending it, but also on the field as a whole. These factors include the prestige of the IASAP, the high visibility of many of the meeting participants, and the long tradition of publishing from each Attention & Performance meeting an excellent and widely-cited volume of articles.