Mechanisms of Willed Attention

在我们的日常生活中，意识到并警惕周围环境的挑战是至关重要的，以便采取适当的行动来生存和茁壮成长。我们成功做到这一点的核心是能够关注最重要和最重要的事件和对象，同时也忽略可能会让我们偏离目标的分散注意力的信息。有几个因素有助于确定事件和对象的相关性，包括我们的瞬时目标(例如，安全地从家里导航到超市)、我们过去的经验和知识(例如，我们回忆起商店附近的街道正在施工，所以我们必须注意绕行标志并改变我们的正常路线)，以及遇到意外事件(例如，一个孩子在街上追球)。我们大脑的注意力系统帮助我们应对许多外部挑战，以实现我们的关键目标。但每天，我们也会做出许多任性的决定，将注意力集中在一个新的对象或事件上，这是我们自己的内在选择，而不是受外部信号、线索或事件的驱动。为了充分理解注意力，研究与自我启动和外部驱动注意力相对应的大脑活动是至关重要的。该项目使用非侵入性脑神经成像技术来测量大脑在执行具有挑战性的任务时的活动。这些技术使我们能够在人类志愿者注意视觉刺激而忽略分心刺激时测量大脑的电活动。用脑电(脑电)记录大脑活动，可以产生关于支持注意力的潜在大脑过程的毫秒级精确度的极好的时间信号。另一种脑成像技术被称为功能磁共振成像(FMRI)，它扫描大脑并提供卓越的空间分辨率，揭示潜在的活跃的大脑网络和不同的大脑结构，使人能够成功地集中注意力和采取行动。利用这两种技术，我们的研究调查了当环境中没有外部信号来吸引或引导我们的注意力时，人类如何能够引导他们的注意力，方法是关注人类的意志如何塑造我们关注的东西。使用机器学习和人工智能方法进行数据分析，初步结果揭示了新的大脑电信号，这些信号是人类志愿者在不久的将来关注什么的预测性大脑信号。识别启动我们自愿注意力的大脑机制可以让我们更深入地理解在疾病、疲劳或高要求的情况下注意力是如何失效的。这项研究还有可能导致开发有价值的干预措施，包括增强我们的注意力能力，以支持人类健康和改善人类表现，无论是在繁忙的交通中驾驶汽车，还是将航天器降落在月球上。与实验研究相结合，该项目的一个关键目标也是通过让少数族裔和贫困学生参与研究来促进STEM教育的发展和多样化。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。

In our daily lives, it is vitally important to be aware and alert to the challenges of our surroundings, in order take appropriate actions to survive and thrive. Central to our success in doing so is the ability to attend to the most salient and important events and objects, while also ignoring distracting information that may divert us from our goals. Several factors contribute to determining the relevance of events and objects, including our momentary goals (e.g., navigating safely from home to the supermarket), our past experiences and knowledge (e.g. we recall that the street near the store is undergoing construction so we have to attend to the detour signs and change our normal route), and encountering unexpected events (e.g. a child running after a ball in the street). Our brain’s attention system helps us to manage the many external challenges to achieving our key goals. But everyday, we also make many self-willed decisions to focus our attention on a new object or event, arising from our own internal choice, not driven by external signals, cues or events. To fully understand attention, it is crucial to investigate the brain activity corresponding to self-initiated, as well as externally driven attention.This project uses non-invasive brain neuroimaging techniques to measure the brain’s activity during the performance of challenging tasks. These techniques allow us to measure the electrical activity of the brain as human volunteers pay attention to visual stimuli and ignore distracting stimuli. Recordings of brain activity with the EEG (electroencephalogram) yield superb temporal signals with millisecond precision about the underlying brain processes that support attention. Another brain imaging technique, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scans the brain and delivers superb spatial resolution, revealing the underlying active brain networks and different brain structures that enable successful attention and action. Utilizing these two techniques, our research investigates how humans are able to direct their attention when there are no external signals in the environment to attract or direct our attention, by focusing on how human volition shapes what we attend to. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence methods for data analyses, preliminary results have revealed new electrical brain signals that are predictive brain signatures of what a human volunteer pays attention to in the immediate future. Identification of the brain mechanisms that initiate our voluntary attention can lead to deeper understanding of how attention fails in disease, with fatigue, or in highly demanding circumstances. This research also has the potential to lead to the development of valuable interventions, including the augmentation of our attention abilities to support human health and improve human performance, whether it be navigating one’s automobile in heavy traffic, or landing a spacecraft on the moon. In conjunction with experimental studies, a key goal of this project is also to advance and diversify STEM education by involving minority and underprivileged students in the research.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.