How does dividing attention limit object recognition and modify relevant neural activity?

项目摘要/摘要 到达我们眼睛的信息并不总是与我们所感知的一致。强烈关注 影响我们所看到的和我们解释世界的方式。与此同时，我们的日常活动经常要求我们 将注意力分散到两件或两件以上的事情上。以前的研究量化了分散的注意力退化了多少 任务绩效产生了不同的结果，而这些影响的神经基础却鲜为人知。 我的建议建立在最近关于掩蔽词注意力分散的研究基础上，这些研究与一个 注意瓶颈(一次只能处理一个单词)。具体地说，我将追寻这样的假设 物体识别中的分散注意效应是由注意瓶颈引起的。我计划使用一种组合 以理论为导向的心理物理学和神经功能成像研究(1)分散注意力的损害程度 人类识别物体的能力，(2)分散注意力在多大程度上改变了神经活动，以及在 大脑发生这种情况，以及(3)注意力分散是否可以解释为什么后部皮质萎缩的患者 (阿尔茨海默病的一种影响视觉区域的变种)表现出识别同时呈现的缺陷 物体。 同时研究视觉和注意力对我们理解这种关系有很大的意义。 大脑和行为之间的关系。我的发现将通过告知认知状态如何相关的理论来产生影响 对大脑活动的影响，以及这些变化如何限制了我们做出感性判断的能力。超越 为了促进视觉和注意加工领域的发展，拟议的研究还将使 对涉及知觉和注意处理功能缺陷的情况的理解的影响，包括 衰老和痴呆症。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The information that reaches our eyes doesn’t always correspond to what we perceive. Attention strongly influences what we see and how we interpret the world. At the same time, our daily activities often require us to divide attention across two or more things. Previous studies quantifying how much divided attention degrades task performance have produced varying results, and the neural bases for these effects are poorly understood. My proposal builds on recent studies of divided attention to masked words, which were consistent with an attentional bottleneck (only one word can be processed at a time). Specifically, I will pursue the hypothesis that divided attention effects in object recognition are due to an attentional bottleneck. I plan to use a combination of theory-driven psychophysics and functional neuroimaging to investigate (1) how much divided attention impairs human ability to recognize objects, (2) how much divided attention changes neural activity, and where in the brain this takes place, and (3) whether divided attention can explain why patients with posterior cortical atrophy (a variant of Alzheimer’s disease affecting visual areas) exhibit deficits in recognizing simultaneously presented objects. Studying vision and attention together can have powerful implications for our understanding of the relationship between brain and behavior. My findings will make an impact by informing theories of how cognitive states relate to brain activity, and how these changes underlie the limits in our ability to make perceptual judgments. Beyond the benefit to advancing the fields of visual and attentional processing, the proposed research will also make an impact in understanding conditions involving deficits in perceptual and attentional processing functions, including aging and dementias.