Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Taking a Computational Approach to Understanding Schema-Memory Interactions

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在阿肯色大学詹姆斯·兰皮宁博士和格兰特·希尔兹博士的赞助下，这项博士后奖学金资助了一位研究图式-记忆相互作用的早期职业科学家。记忆丧失是衰老最令人恐惧和最有害的后果之一--但当老年人的先验知识(即图式)与他们试图记住的东西一致时(例如，记住药物是在药箱里的)，老年人的记忆与年轻人的记忆相似。然而，当他们的先验知识与要记住的信息相冲突时(例如，记住药物是在一个不寻常的地方，比如冰箱)，老年人更难记住这些信息。尽管了解随年龄增长的记忆丧失很重要，但我们不知道老年人的记忆如何或为什么在图式一致和图式不一致的信息之间存在如此显著的差异。这个项目将通过使用尖端方法--计算认知模型开发和新的眼球追踪指标--的组合来解决这一差距，以测试新的机制，并提出为什么老年人的记忆如此受图式一致性影响的新理论。这些发现以及我们开发的新型计算模型有望极大地促进该领域对记忆和衰老的理解。本研究的目的是：1)开发两个新的计算认知模型，以评估图式-记忆交互作用的动力学基础；2)利用这些模型和眼球追踪来探索年龄差异对记忆的图式影响的机制，并检验新的理论。年长和年轻的成年人将在场景中搜索图式一致和图式不一致的物体，完成空间回忆和场景识别记忆测试，并完成与图式相关的场景评级任务。眼球跟踪数据将被收集在整个过程中。一个计算认知模型将被开发来捕捉图式-记忆交互作用如何随着时间的推移而展开，另一个模型将被开发来捕捉它们在记忆决策中的权重。这项拟议的研究将通过开发和传播可用于回答记忆研究中未来问题的新模型，首次直接测试以前的理论化机制，确定以前没有考虑过的新机制，并提出一个能够调和相互竞争的理论的新理论，从而极大地促进我们对图式-记忆相互作用的理解。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。

This award was provided as part of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Drs. James Lampinen and Grant Shields at the University of Arkansas, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating schema-memory interactions. Loss of memory is one of the most feared and detrimental consequences of aging--but when older adults' prior knowledge (i.e., schema) is consistent with what they are trying to remember (e.g., remembering medication is in a medicine cabinet), older adults' memory is similar to younger adults' memory. When their prior knowledge is conflicting with to-be-remembered information (e.g., remembering medication is in an unusual place like the fridge), however, older adults have more difficulty remembering that information. Despite the importance of understanding memory loss with age, it is not known how or why older adults' memory differs so markedly between schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent information. This project will address this gap by using a combination of cutting-edge methods--computational cognitive model development and new eyetracking metrics--to test new mechanisms and put forth a new theory of why older adults' memory is so affected by schema consistency. The findings as well as the novel computational models we develop are expected to substantially advance the field's understanding of memory in general and in aging. Moreover, these findings are expected to provide a foundation for the future development of interventions for memory decline in aging, such as interventions targeting the use of schemas in memory decisions.The aims of the proposed research are 1) to develop two new computational cognitive models that allow the dynamics underlying schema-memory interactions to be assessed, and 2) to use these models as well as eyetracking to probe mechanisms underlying age differences in schema effects on memory and test a new theory. Older and younger adult participants will search for schema-congruent and schema-incongruent objects in scenes, complete a spatial recall and scene recognition memory test, and complete a schema-related scene rating task. Eyetracking data will be collected throughout. One computational cognitive model will be developed to capture how schema-memory interactions unfold over time, and another model will be developed to capture how they are weighted in memory decisions. The proposed research stands to substantially advance our understanding of schema-memory interactions in general and in aging by developing and disseminating new models that can be used to answer future questions in memory research, directly testing previously theorized mechanisms for the first time, identifying new mechanisms that had not previously been considered, and putting forward a new theory that stands to reconcile competing theories.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.