CAREER: Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms of Attention Capture by Episodic Long-Term Memory

众所周知，注意力对学习和记忆至关重要，但人们对注意力如何受到过去记忆的影响的了解相对较少。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，黛博拉·汉努拉博士将进行眼球跟踪和功能核磁共振相结合的实验，以表征通过情景长期记忆捕捉注意力的认知和神经过程。这些研究将通过a)确定与基于记忆的捕获相关的神经机制，以及b)确定避免和脱离此类捕获的方法，来解决关于长期记忆提取，特别是负向记忆的提取如何影响目标导向行为的问题。这个项目结合了记忆和注意力这两个通常分开的研究领域，在记忆提取的背景下调查注意力。这种综合的方法向理解大脑在现实世界中运行时发生的高度交互的认知过程又迈进了一步。表征长时记忆的注意捕获很重要，因为在某些情况下，长时记忆提取是不可取的(例如，创伤后应激障碍)。找出抑制或将注意力从长期记忆中分离出来的神经机制可能会带来新的发展，有助于治疗精神病患者的这些症状。为配合上述研究目标，该中心亦会推行一项教育计划，为学生和社区成员提供互动式和易於接触的认知科学入门课程，重点是记忆力和注意力。

Attention is well known to be critically important for learning and memory but relatively less is known about how attention could be influenced by what one remembers from the past. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Deborah Hannula will conduct experiments combining eye-tracking with functional MRI to characterize the cognitive and neural processes underlying the capture of attention by episodic long-term memory. These studies will address questions about how long-term memory retrieval, particularly retrieval of negative memory, can influence goal-directed behavior by a) identifying the neural mechanisms that are correlated with memory-based capture, and b) identifying ways to avoid and disengage from such capture. This project combines memory and attention, two typically separated areas of studies, to investigate attention in the context of memory retrieval. This integrative approach moves one step closer to gaining an understanding of the highly interactive cognitive processes taking place when the brain operates in the real world. Characterization of attention capture by long-term memory is important because in some situations long-term memory retrieval is undesirable (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder). Identifying the neural mechanisms involved in suppressing or disengaging attention from long-term memory may lead to new developments that could help remediate these symptoms in psychiatric populations. To complement the research objectives outlined above, the PI will also implement an education plan that will provide students and community members with interactive and accessible introductions to cognitive science, with an emphasis on memory and attention.