CAREER: Reward learning, selection history, and attentional control

从一连串的内在思想、感觉和记忆，到不断变化的外部视觉、声音和气味，清醒的生活包含的信息远远超过我们的神经系统在任何时候都能处理的信息。我们通过有选择地关注这个世界来克服这一挑战；也就是说，通过优先处理某些类型的信息，而不是处理其他类型的信息。但注意力是如何分配的，我们对这一过程有多少自愿控制？这些研究问题的答案对个人体验和整个社会都有巨大的影响。这个学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)项目促进了我们对观察者的过去如何调节他们现在的注意力的科学理解。除了为学习和记忆等心理学其他核心领域的研究提供信息外，研究成果还应用于临床工作，因为异常注意机制被假设在一系列精神健康障碍(例如，药物滥用、焦虑障碍、自闭症谱系障碍)中发挥作用。PI是一家以本科为主的机构的教员，该项目为本科研究培训和本科课堂上以STEM为重点的创新提供了独特的机会。作为教育计划的一个额外组成部分，PI进一步努力提高来自代表性不足社区的知名科学家的可见度，并促进包容性指导，为留住代表性不足的学生提供服务。视觉注意力可以分配到视野中的特定位置或对象的特征，如颜色、方向或运动方向。有时，注意力的转移是自愿产生的，以支持目标导向的行为。其他时候，注意力被物理上突出的物体(例如，突然出现或视觉上独特的物体)“俘获”。虽然几十年来，用这种二分术语来框定注意力一直是占主导地位的理论方法，但现在的文献表明，不显著的刺激也可以捕捉注意力。这种注意力偏向取决于一个人独特的历史(例如，如果物体在过去经常被关注，或者它们是否与接受奖励有关)。运用行为学和眼动追踪的方法，本职业项目的第一个研究目标是理清两个历史因素对注意控制的影响：频繁的注意分配(选择历史)和接受奖励(奖励历史)。第二个目标是使用脑功能成像来检查与选择历史衍生的注意偏差有关的神经系统，并检验由腹侧纹状体产生的信息预测误差调节视觉注意分配的假设。该项目的目标1和目标2关注的是身体上不显著的特征，这些特征会因为先前的经验而偏离注意力，而目标3则将重点转移到身体上的显著刺激上，并研究了显著和历史是如何相互作用的。从PI的实验室扩展最近的工作，第三个目标是使用心理物理方法来模拟视觉处理的时间动力学，当注意力被预测是否存在可用的奖励的突然开始反射性地分配时。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

From a parade of internal thoughts, feelings, and memories, to an ever-changing barrage of external sights, sounds, and smells, waking life contains far more information than our nervous systems can handle at any one time. We overcome this challenge by selectively attending to the world; that is, by prioritizing the processing of some kinds of information at the expense of others. But how is attention allocated and how much voluntary control do we have over that process? The answers to these research questions have vast implications for individual experience, and for society at large. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project advances our scientific understanding of how an observer’s past modulates their attention in the present. In addition to informing research in other core areas of psychology like learning and memory, the research outcomes have applications to clinical work, as aberrant attentional mechanisms are hypothesized to play a role in a multitude of mental health disorders (e.g., substance abuse, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder). The PI is a faculty member at a primarily undergraduate institution, and this project provides unique opportunities for undergraduate research training and for STEM-focused innovation in the undergraduate classroom. As an additional component of the education plan, the PI furthers efforts to raise the visibility of established scientists from underrepresented communities and promotes inclusive mentoring in the service of retaining underrepresented students in science.Visual attention can be allocated to specific locations in the visual field or to features of objects like color, orientation, or motion direction. Sometimes, shifts of attention are voluntarily generated to support goal-directed behavior. Other times, attention is “captured” by physically salient objects (e.g., those that suddenly appear or are visually unique). While framing attention in such dichotomous terms has been the dominant theoretical approach for many decades, the literature now makes clear that non-salient stimuli can also capture attention. Such attentional biases rely on one’s unique history (e.g., if objects have been frequently attended in the past, or if they have been associated with receiving reward). Using behavioral and eye-tracking methods, the first research goal of this CAREER project is to disentangle the impact of two such historical factors on attentional control: frequent attentional allocation (selection history) and receiving of rewards (reward history). The second goal is to use functional brain imaging to examine the neural systems involved in selection-history-derived attentional biases and to test the hypothesis that information prediction errors generated by the ventral striatum modulate the allocation of visual attention. Whereas Aims 1 and 2 of the project focus on physically non-salient features that bias attention as a result of former experience, Aim 3 shifts the focus to physically salient stimuli and examines how saliency and history interact. Extending recent work from the PI’s laboratory, the third goal is to use psychophysical methods to model the temporal dynamics of visual processing when attention has been reflexively allocated by abrupt onsets that predict the presence or absence of available reward.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.