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

注意力和表现会议在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与表现研究协会(IASAP)第二十九次会议的资金。这次会议将于7月1日至7日在西西里岛的埃赖斯举行，将讨论视觉认知的脑功能成像主题。到目前为止，功能脑成像在成本、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，这套新技术究竟对人类认知研究做出了多大贡献呢？从什么时候起，大脑成像的一个发现就会制约认知理论？我们同情那些站在一旁观看的人，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几乎没有为研究人员提供对认知感兴趣的东西。然而，我们对最近的结果感到鼓舞，并希望一个新的时代正在开始，在这个时代，脑功能成像可能会实现其作为认知研究的强大工具的潜力。这次会议的目标是通过讨论脑功能成像是否、何时以及如何限制人类认知理论来解决所有这些问题。我们选择将我们的讨论集中在视觉认知的特定主题上，最近许多最好的成像工作都是在这一主题上进行的。我们挑选了65名世界上顶尖的研究人员，他们要么在视觉认知方面进行成像工作，要么在一个密切相关的领域拥有专业知识，对该领域的理解对于我们推进脑成像研究(例如，认知心理学、单元记录、计算建模)至关重要。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提供认知问题的答案的方法。会议将包括模块化、视觉对象表征、发育和可塑性、视觉注意力和感觉运动集成等方面的会议。尽一切努力将少数民族、女性和处于职业生涯早期阶段的研究人员包括在内。我们预计，有几个因素将保证本次会议不仅对与会人员，而且对整个实地产生广泛影响。这些因素包括IASAP的声望，许多与会者的高知名度，以及每次注意力与业绩会议发表大量被广泛引用的优秀文章的悠久传统。

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.