Partitioning Processes of Interference Control in Mind and Brain

心智和大脑干扰控制的划分过程

• 批准号: 0520992
• 负责人: John Jonides
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-08-01 至 2009-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0520992&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Partitioning; Processes; Interference; Control; Mind

Cognitive processes are often classified as either automatic or under attentional control. Automatic processes are an important component of ongoing behavior, because they free us from having to deliberate about every task that faces us. But this very automaticity creates a problem for many ongoing behaviors. Many of the stimuli we encounter and many of the tasks we face are ones in which an automatic process is not the one that is most appropriate to the present context. This is so for encoding, when attention is often drawn by salient stimuli in the environment that should not be the targets of processing. It is so for working memory, where we often have information stored that is irrelevant to the task at hand. And it is so for responding, when we often must overcome pre-potent responses to respond correctly in some situation. It is critical to understand how humans are able to overcome their automatic behaviors and engage in more controlled processing. For over 100 years, psychological experimentation and theory have grappled with understanding how interference is controlled and resolved in perceptual and memory tasks. For a time, the predominant view of interference-resolution rested on the assumption that there is a single mechanism responsible for inhibition of irrelevant or distracting information across a variety of circumstances. However, other research has led to the view that inhibitory mechanisms may vary from one task to another. How might the mechanisms of interference-resolution be similar to or different from task to task? That is the question that motivates the present application. With funding from the National Science Foundation, John Jonides is investigating two alternative dimensions to partition interference-resolution mechanisms. One rests on the proposal that different stages in the information-processing stream demand different mechanisms of interference-resolution. The hypothesis is being tested that encoding, maintenance in working memory, response selection, and response execution stages of processing have partially non-overlapping mechanisms that are engaged when there is interference that needs to be controlled. The second dimension concerns the type of information that is involved. There is evidence that verbal and spatial information are processed by different brain mechanisms in many tasks, and that interference may be resolved differently for the two types of information. The hypothesis will be tested that when there is verbal and spatial information involved in tasks for which interference must be controlled, different mechanisms are engaged. The broader impacts of this research program will be felt in five areas. First, there will be a research seminar including graduate and undergraduate students that meets weekly to discuss ongoing research concerned with interference-resolution. Second, the research will be conducted with the participation of underrepresented students chosen from the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Third, the research program will make use of an NSF-funded neuroimaging facility that will serve as a vehicle to educate students about neuroimaging methods. Fourth, the proposed research will result in published papers and conference presentations that will disseminate the empirical findings and document the development of the underlying theory. Finally, in that interference-resolution processes are critical to everyday cognitive functioning, the proposed program could lead to a prescription for training regimens that may strengthen some of these processes.

认知过程通常被分为自动的或注意力控制的。 自动化过程是持续行为的重要组成部分，因为它们使我们不必考虑我们面临的每一项任务。 但这种自动性给许多持续的行为带来了问题。 在我们遇到的许多刺激和面临的许多任务中，自动过程并不是最适合当前情境的过程。 编码也是如此，当注意力经常被环境中的显著刺激所吸引时，这些刺激不应该是处理的目标。工作记忆也是如此，我们经常储存与手头任务无关的信息。对于反应也是如此，当我们在某些情况下必须克服优势反应才能正确反应时。 了解人类如何克服他们的自动行为并参与更可控的处理至关重要。100多年来，心理学实验和理论一直致力于理解在知觉和记忆任务中干扰是如何控制和解决的。有一段时间，干扰消解的主流观点是基于这样一种假设，即存在一种单一的机制，负责在各种情况下抑制无关或分散注意力的信息。 然而，其他研究已经导致了这样的观点，即抑制机制可能会因任务而异。 不同任务之间的干扰解决机制有何相似或不同？ 这就是本申请的动机所在。在美国国家科学基金会的资助下，John Jonides正在研究两个替代维度来划分干扰解决机制。 一个是基于这样的建议，即信息处理流的不同阶段需要不同的干扰解决机制。 假设正在测试，编码，在工作记忆中的维护，响应选择，响应执行阶段的处理有部分非重叠的机制，当有干扰，需要加以控制。 第二个维度涉及所涉及的信息类型。 有证据表明，在许多任务中，语言和空间信息由不同的大脑机制处理，并且对于这两种类型的信息，干扰可能会以不同的方式解决。假设将被测试，当有言语和空间信息参与的任务，干扰必须控制，不同的机制进行。 这项研究计划的更广泛的影响将在五个领域。首先，将有一个研究研讨会，包括研究生和本科生，每周开会讨论正在进行的研究与干扰解决方案。 第二，研究将与从本科生研究机会计划中选择的代表性不足的学生的参与进行。 第三，该研究计划将利用NSF资助的神经成像设施，作为教育学生神经成像方法的工具。 第四，拟议的研究将导致发表的论文和会议介绍，将传播的实证研究结果和文件的基础理论的发展。 最后，由于干扰解决过程对日常认知功能至关重要，拟议的计划可能会导致训练方案的处方，可能会加强其中一些过程。