CAREER: Flexible Resource Allocation and Efficient Coding in Human Vision

职业：人类视觉中的灵活资源分配和高效编码

• 批准号: 0953730
• 负责人: George Alvarez
• 金额: $ 59.18万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-07-01 至 2016-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0953730&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Flexible; Resource; Allocation; Efficient

Imagine you are driving in the middle lane of a busy three-lane highway, approaching your exit, with the radio on so you can hear the weather report, and with your children in the backseat calling for you. How are you going to manage this situation? Will you ignore all but one thing, and pay full attention to the road signs to determine when to switch lanes, or to cars in the rearview mirror as you change lanes, or to the radio, or to your children? Or will you somehow divide your attention between all of these incoming streams of information? What is the optimal thing to do under these circumstances, and can you do it? With the support of an NSF CAREER award, Dr. George Alvarez at Harvard University will examine whether people can optimize the way they divide their attention, and how this affects their ability to see and accurately report information in their field of view. We are limited in our ability to attend to multiple things at once, and given the limits on our attention, there is an optimal strategy for how to pay attention in any given situation. This optimal strategy could involve flexibly distributing attention (e.g., paying 40% to the road signs, 40% to cars in other lanes, and 20% to the children in the backseat), or using clever strategies for combing information (e.g., you can get the gist of whether the chatter in the backseat requires your immediate attention without paying attention to each individual voice). The proposed research will examine whether, and how, these different strategies are employed to optimize the use of our limited attentional resources.A basic level understanding of how people optimize the use of their limited attentional resources opens the door to studying the extent to which attention deficits in humans are due to sub-optimal use of available resources. Thus, the results of the research will have implications for disorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Autism, Schizophrenia, Dementia, or disorders due to stroke or brain damage, such as Visual Neglect or Executive Dysfunction. In addition, Dr. Alvarez will use the research project as an opportunity to mentor a cadre of undergraduate students from underrepresented groups. Dr. Alvarez helps coordinate a summer research program that places students in labs, providing them with hands on training in conducting behavioral research. As a professor of Hispanic background, Dr. Alvarez is in a unique position to increase minority representation and visibility in the brain and cognitive sciences.

想象一下，您正在繁忙的三车道高速公路的中间车道上行驶，接近出口，收音机打开，以便您可以听到天气预报，而后座上的孩子正在呼唤您。你将如何处理这种情况？您会忽略除一件事之外的所有事情，并充分注意路标以确定何时变换车道，或者变换车道时后视镜中的汽车，或者收音机，或者您的孩子吗？或者你会以某种方式将你的注意力分散到所有这些传入的信息流上吗？在这种情况下，最好的做法是什么？你能做到吗？ 在美国国家科学基金会职业奖的支持下，哈佛大学的乔治·阿尔瓦雷斯博士将研究人们是否可以优化他们分散注意力的方式，以及这如何影响他们查看和准确报告视野中信息的能力。我们同时处理多件事的能力是有限的，并且考虑到我们注意力的限制，在任何特定情况下如何集中注意力都有一个最佳策略。这种最佳策略可以涉及灵活地分配注意力（例如，将 40% 的注意力集中在路标上，40% 的注意力集中在其他车道上的汽车上，20% 的注意力集中在后座上的孩子上），或者使用巧妙的策略来梳理信息（例如，无需注意每个人的声音，就可以了解后座的喋喋不休是否需要您立即注意）。拟议的研究将探讨是否以及如何采用这些不同的策略来优化我们有限的注意力资源的使用。对人们如何优化他们有限的注意力资源的使用的基本了解，为研究人类注意力缺陷在多大程度上归因于现有资源的次优利用打开了大门。 因此，该研究的结果将对注意力缺陷障碍、强迫症、自闭症、精神分裂症、痴呆症或中风或脑损伤引起的疾病（如视觉忽视或执行功能障碍）产生影响。 此外，阿尔瓦雷斯博士还将利用该研究项目作为指导一批来自代表性不足群体的本科生的机会。阿尔瓦雷斯博士帮助协调一个夏季研究项目，该项目将学生安排在实验室中，为他们提供进行行为研究的实践培训。作为一名西班牙裔背景的教授，阿尔瓦雷斯博士在增加大脑和认知科学领域的少数群体代表性和知名度方面处于独特的地位。