CAREER: The Neural Basis of Memory for Visual Environments

当我们在我们的世界中导航时，我们面前的视觉场景与我们对更广泛的空间环境的知识无缝地结合在一起，帮助形成我们环境的心理地图。感知的无缝本质是相当了不起的，特别是考虑到我们环境的每一种观点都是离散和短暂的，由扩张的眼球运动分隔开来，从而产生对我们空间环境的不连续的观点。了解大脑是如何做到这一点的，是一个重大的科学难题。这个项目的目标是确定在真实世界的场景感知过程中，记忆和感知在人脑中是如何相互作用的。使用包括身临其境的虚拟现实和大脑成像在内的一系列工具，该项目承诺提供关于人类大脑如何构建自然环境的记忆以及这些记忆如何影响日常视觉体验的基础知识。该项目还通过消除不同神经性学习者的障碍，扩大URM和女大学生对神经科学的参与，并促进农村社区的科学推广，促进包容性STEM教育。该项目旨在了解人脑中沉浸式真实世界环境的记忆的性质，并阐明助记和感知信号在真实世界感知过程中如何相互作用。为了解决这些问题，该项目利用了两项独特的创新：(1)使用头盔虚拟现实在自然环境中研究人类记忆和感知的新技术方法，以及(2)细粒度个体受试者大脑成像(fMRI-功能磁共振成像)分析，以表征大脑中视觉记忆表征的性质。这种多模式方法允许对神经系统支持真实世界环境的感知和记忆的受控测试，以及对学习环境内容的直接操作，以理解熟悉场景的神经表示。最后，这个项目提出了大脑中记忆-视觉相互作用的新理论，并具体测试了位置记忆是否与相对于场景感知的不同大脑区域(前移)相关。这项研究还将确定位置记忆的大脑表征位置的这种变化如何与上下文信息量、参与者的记忆表现和场景特定过程有关。最后，这个项目还将探索这种“前移”是否代表了记忆和高级视觉区域如何在大脑中相互作用的一般原则。总而言之，这些研究承诺在人脑中产生关于沉浸式真实世界环境中记忆的性质的基本知识，以及更广泛地说，存储的关于世界的知识与自然视觉体验中的感知相结合的机制。该项目由认知神经科学计划和既定的刺激竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As we navigate through our world, the visual scene in front of us is seamlessly integrated with our knowledge of the broader spatial environment, helping to form mental maps of our environment. The seamless nature of perception is quite remarkable, especially considering that each view of our environment is discrete and fleeting, separated by expansive eye movements that produce discontinuous views of our spatial surroundings. Understanding how this is accomplished in the brain is a major scientific puzzle. The goal of this project is to determine how memory and perception interface in the human brain during real-world scene perception. Using a combination of tools, including immersive virtual reality and brain imaging, this project promises fundamental knowledge about how the human brain constructs memories of a naturalistic environments and how these memories influence everyday visual experience. This project also advances inclusive STEM education by removing barriers for neurodiverse learners, broadening participation of URM and female college students in neuroscience, and contributing to scientific outreach in rural communities.This project aims to understand the nature of memory for immersive, real-world environments in the human brain, and to shed light on how mnemonic and perceptual signals interact during real-world perception. To tackle these questions, this project leverages two distinctive innovations: (1) a new technical approach to study human memory and perception in naturalistic settings using head-mounted virtual reality, and (2) fine-grained individual subject brain imaging (fMRI -functional magnetic resonance imaging) analyses to characterize the nature of visuo-mnemonic representations in the brain. This multimodal approach allows for controlled tests of which neural systems support perception and memory for real world environments, and direct manipulations of the content of learned environments to understand the neural representation of familiar scenes. Finally, this project forwards a novel theory of mnemonic-visual interactions in the brain and specifically tests whether place memory is associated with a different brain area (shifted anterior) relative to scene perception. This research will also determine how this change in the location of the brain representation for place memory is related to the amount of contextual information, participants’ memory performance, and scene-specific processes. Finally, this project will also explore whether such an “anterior shift” represents a general principle of how mnemonic and high-level visual areas interact in the brain. Together, these studies promise to generate fundamental knowledge about the nature of memory for immersive, real-world environments in the human brain, and, more broadly, the mechanisms by which stored knowledge about the world interfaces with perception during naturalistic visual experience.This project is jointly funded by the Cognitive Neuroscience Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.