CAREER: How Memory Contributes to Goal-Directed Attention

记忆是我们许多行为的一个关键方面。我们用记忆来找路，在人群中发现熟悉的面孔，在说话和写作时记录我们的想法。记忆影响我们许多行为的一种强大方式是帮助引导我们的注意力。例如，在凌乱的厨房里，你可以用你的记忆来查找杯子通常存放在哪里。因此，尽管研究记忆通常是为了它本身——例如，为了了解我们如何能够回忆过去，或者这个过程是如何出错的——但了解我们如何利用记忆来指导我们的注意力和行动也是至关重要的。这个项目的目标是了解人类大脑的功能如何使我们能够利用过去的记忆来引导我们的注意力，以及这对我们如何快速准确地完成任务有何影响。在此过程中，这项工作将强调记忆对时刻注意力的至关重要性。这将填补科学研究中的一个重要空白，因为科学研究经常孤立地研究注意力和记忆。它将强调我们过去和现在经历的基本互动本质，并暗示在教育环境中学习和记忆如何影响注意力和未来的学习，形成一个反馈循环。因此，该项目试图确定记忆引导注意力的神经机制，重点关注存储在大脑中一个关键区域的记忆，该区域对建立新记忆和提取旧记忆至关重要：海马体。这将通过两个目标来实现，这两个目标使用多种方法：功能性磁共振成像，脑病变患者的研究，眼动追踪以及行为准确性和反应时间的测量。在目标1中，该项目将确定记忆引导注意力的神经回路及其与行为的关系。主要的假设是，包括海马体、前额叶和视觉皮质在内的大脑网络允许我们使用记忆来更新注意力目标，并在信息出现之前预测与任务相关的信息。这一假设将通过一种描述大脑区域之间相互作用的新方法（表征连通性）来验证，该方法可以研究区域之间信息内容的同步性。在Aim 2中，该项目将建立记忆和注意力如何共同引导视觉探索。主要假设是海马对先前注意目标的记忆检索会影响新情境下的视觉探索、注意和记忆。这项工作将对教育产生创新的影响，例如，使用眼动追踪来识别学生是否记住并注意了相关信息，即使他们不能口头描述它。总之，这两个目标将开始揭示记忆影响我们当下注意力行为的强大方式。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Memory is a critical aspect of many of our behaviors. We use memory to find our way around, to detect a familiar face in a crowd, and to keep track of our ideas as we speak and write. One powerful way that memory can affect so many of our behaviors is by helping to guide what we pay attention to. For example, in a messy kitchen, you can use your memory for where mugs are typically stored in order to find one. Therefore, although memory is often studied for its own sake - for example, to understand how we are able to reminisce about the past, or how that process can go wrong - it is also critically important to understand how we can use memory in the service of guiding our attention and actions. The goal of this project is to understand how the functioning of the human brain enables us to use memories of the past to direct our attention, and the consequences that has for how quickly and accurately we can accomplish tasks. In doing so, this work will highlight the critical importance of memory for moment-to-moment attention. This will fill an important gap in scientific research, which often studies attention and memory in isolation. It will highlight the fundamentally interactive nature of our past and current experiences, with implications for how learning and remembering in educational settings can affect attention and future learning in a feedback loop.This project therefore seeks to determine the neural mechanisms by which memories guide attention, focusing on the memories stored in a key brain region that is critical for building new memories and retrieving old ones: the hippocampus. This will be accomplished in two Aims, which use multiple methods: functional magnetic resonance imaging, studies of patients with brain lesions, eye tracking, and measures of behavioral accuracy and response times. In Aim 1, the project will determine the neural circuits for memory-guided attention and their relationship to behavior. The main hypothesis is that a brain network including the hippocampus and prefrontal and visual cortices allows us to use memory to update attentional goals and anticipate task-relevant information before it appears. This hypothesis will be tested using a novel approach of characterizing interactions between brain regions (representational connectivity), whichenables investigation of synchrony in information content between regions. In Aim 2, this project will establish how memory and attention jointly guide visual exploration. The main hypothesis is that hippocampal memory retrieval of prior attentional goals will influence visual exploration, attention, and memory in novel situations. This work will have innovative implications for education, e.g., the use of eye tracking to identify if students are remembering and attending to relevant information, even if they cannotverbally describe it. Together, these two Aims will start to uncover the powerful way that memories can influence our in-the-moment attentional behaviors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.