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Episodic memory retrieval as attention turned inward

当注意力转向内部时情景记忆检索

基本信息

批准号：
2147017
负责人：
Gordon Logan
金额：
$ 67万
依托单位：
Vanderbilt University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2022-08-01 至 2025-07-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2147017&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Episodic memory retrieval attention turned

项目摘要

Attention and memory are intricately linked in many kinds of human performance across fields such as education, industry, the military, sports, and everyday life. These processes are major sources of individual differences that are often implicated in psychological and neurological disorders. This project offers new insights into the linkage, focusing on the selective nature of attention and memory retrieval, and testing the conjecture that memory retrieval is perceptual attention turned inward. The research develops new experimental procedures that apply methods for studying perceptual attention to the understanding of memory retrieval. It provides new measures -- of the sharpness of the focus of attention on memory, and the ability to resist distraction from competing memories -- that are not available in current methodologies and which are not addressed in extant theories. The research tests new mathematical theories of selective attention and memory retrieval that specify how memory lists are represented and how retrieval processes can access items in the list selectively. The theories show that attention and memory retrieval rely on the same mathematical principles. Computer simulations based on these principles reproduce critical patterns of human behavior. The primary goal of the research is to develop empirically supported computational models that provide deeper insights into the cognitive and neural basis of the interaction between attention and memory. Understanding the computational principles facilitates integration and comparison with current theories of attention and memory that address other phenomena, like memory encoding or dividing attention between inputs or tasks. The materials, code, and data generated by this project are openly available to everyone. A broader goal of the research is to provide a strong empirical and theoretical basis for applied research in education and the workplace and to provide new theory-based measures of individual differences and clinical disorders. The broadest goal of the research is to disseminate the acquired knowledge to a wide range of audiences, from lay people to scientists, through accessible publications and participation in workshops and summer schools. The beneficiaries included undergraduate students from underrepresented groups, who engage in all aspects of the research process, thus encouraging them to pursue careers in science.This project establishes new empirical connections between attention and memory by adapting the Eriksen flanker task (which is primarily used to study perceptual attention) to measure selective memory retrieval. The new episodic flanker task measures the sharpness of the focus of attention on memory and the ability to resist distraction from flanking items. It requires subjects to remember a list of items (e.g., RFCKGL) and presents a probe display that cues a single item (e.g., ##C###). Subjects are asked to indicate whether the cued item was in the same position in the memory list. The sharpness of their focus on memory is measured by presenting non-matching items from the list that differ in their distance to the probed item (e.g., ##K### vs. ##L###). Nearby items that fall within the focus of attention are harder to reject than distant items outside the focus. Resistance to distraction is measured by presenting flanking letters that match (e.g., RFCKGL) or mismatch (STCPXV) the memory list and subsequently observing how effectively subjects can ignore the flankers. Performance is better when cued and flanking letters “point” to the same response and is worse when they point to opposite responses. Flanking letters that match the target improve performance for “yes” responses but impair performance for “no” responses; flanking letters that mismatch the target impair performance for “yes” responses and improve performance for “no” responses. The size of the improvements and impairments reflects the ability to resist distraction. This research establishes new theoretical connections between attention and memory by adapting computational models of memory retrieval to the episodic flanker task, interpreting their retrieval cues as spotlights of attention focused on memory, and asking whether their spotlights predict the observed distance and compatibility effects. It interprets three memory models (noisy coding, position coding, and item coding) as examples of three classic approaches to selective attention (space-based, object-based, and template-based, respectively), connecting a broad range of memory theory and attention theory. The proposed research claims that retrieval and attention are different names for the same computations, explained by the same underlying mathematics. The research evaluates this claim with a broad range of items, from letters and words to colors and pictures, with a range of timescales that encompass both short-term and long-term memory, and with a broad range of tasks that tap the same representations, relating serial recall and cued recall to cued recognition in the episodic flanker task.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.

注意力和记忆力在教育、工业、军事、体育和日常生活等领域的许多人类表现中错综复杂地联系在一起。这些过程是个体差异的主要来源，而这些个体差异往往与心理和神经障碍有关。该项目提供了新的见解的联系，专注于注意和记忆提取的选择性的性质，并测试的猜想，记忆提取是知觉注意转向内。该研究开发了新的实验程序，将研究知觉注意的方法应用于对记忆提取的理解。它提供了新的衡量标准--注意力集中在记忆上的敏锐度，以及抵抗竞争记忆干扰的能力--这些在当前的方法中是不可用的，在现存的理论中也没有得到解决。这项研究测试了选择性注意和记忆提取的新数学理论，这些理论规定了记忆列表如何表示，以及提取过程如何选择性地访问列表中的项目。这些理论表明，注意力和记忆提取依赖于相同的数学原理。基于这些原则的计算机模拟再现了人类行为的关键模式。该研究的主要目标是开发经验支持的计算模型，为注意力和记忆之间相互作用的认知和神经基础提供更深入的见解。理解计算原理有助于与当前注意力和记忆理论的整合和比较，这些理论涉及其他现象，如记忆编码或在输入或任务之间分配注意力。该项目生成的材料、代码和数据对每个人都是开放的。研究的一个更广泛的目标是为教育和工作场所的应用研究提供强有力的经验和理论基础，并提供新的基于理论的个体差异和临床疾病的措施。研究的最广泛目标是通过可获得的出版物和参加讲习班和暑期学校，向从外行到科学家的广泛受众传播所获得的知识。受益者包括来自代表性不足群体的本科生，他们参与研究过程的各个方面，从而鼓励他们追求科学事业。该项目通过调整Eriksen flanker任务（主要用于研究知觉注意力）来测量选择性记忆提取，从而建立了注意力和记忆之间新的实证联系。新的情景侧翼任务测量了注意力集中在记忆上的敏锐度和抵抗侧翼项目分心的能力。它要求受试者记住一系列项目（例如，RFCKGL）并呈现提示单个项目（例如，##C#）。受试者被要求指出线索项目是否在记忆列表中的相同位置。他们对记忆的关注的清晰度是通过呈现来自列表的不匹配项来测量的，这些不匹配项与被探测项的距离不同（例如，##K # vs. ##L #）。在注意力焦点内的近距离项目比焦点外的远距离项目更难拒绝。通过呈现匹配的侧翼字母（例如，RFCKGL）或错配（STCPXV）的记忆列表，并随后观察如何有效的主题可以忽略侧翼。当提示和侧翼字母“指向”相同的反应时，表现更好，当它们指向相反的反应时，表现更差。与目标匹配的侧翼字母提高了“是”反应的表现，但削弱了“否”反应的表现;与目标不匹配的侧翼字母削弱了“是”反应的表现，提高了“否”反应的表现。改善和损伤的大小反映了抵抗分心的能力。本研究通过将记忆提取的计算模型应用于情景侧翼任务，将其提取线索解释为专注于记忆的注意聚光灯，并询问其聚光灯是否预测观察到的距离和相容性效应，从而建立了注意和记忆之间的新理论联系。它将三种记忆模型（噪音编码、位置编码和项目编码）解释为选择性注意的三种经典方法（分别基于空间、基于对象和基于模板）的示例，连接了广泛的记忆理论和注意力理论。这项研究声称，提取和注意力是相同计算的不同名称，由相同的基础数学解释。该研究用一系列广泛的项目来评估这一说法，从字母和单词到颜色和图片，用一系列包含短期和长期记忆的时间尺度，以及一系列利用相同表征的任务，将连续回忆和线索回忆与情节侧翼任务中的线索识别联系起来。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式提供支持：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。