FEATURE INTEGRATION AND ATTENTION IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

该项目旨在系统地研究阿尔茨海默病（AD）中对象表征和注意之间相互作用的神经心理过程。虽然最近的研究表明，AD患者在基于物体的注意过程中具有特定的缺陷，但高级关联区域内皮质皮层连接的中断也可能在视觉信息整合到连贯的物体表征中产生前注意障碍。 因此，AD患者在视觉注意力测试中表现出的明显缺陷可能与物体表征的损伤以及注意力本身的损伤一样多。 识别AD中物体表征和注意过程相互作用的方式不仅可以更好地理解与这种疾病相关的认知缺陷，而且还可以获得有关调节正常物体表征和注意的神经心理学底物的重要信息。 该提案分为两节。 首先，一系列的分类和检查时间的任务，包括几种类型的多维刺激，不同程度的功能完整性将被用来系统地评估AD患者和正常对照之间的差异，在介导对象感知的陈述。 其次，这些相同的刺激将被用于一系列的视觉搜索和虚幻的连接任务，以直接评估AD的注意力和表征缺陷之间的相互作用。

The proposed project is designed to systematically examine the neuropsychological processes mediating interactions between object representation and attention in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although recent studies suggest that AD patients possess specific deficits in object-based attentional processes, it is possible that disruption of corticocortical connections within higher- order association areas may also produce pre-attentive impairment in the integration of visual information into coherent object representations. Thus, the apparent deficits exhibited by AD patients on tests of visual attention may be attributable as much to impairments in object representation as to impairments in attention per se. Identification of the ways in which object representation and attentional processes interact in AD should not only provide a better understanding of the cognitive deficits associated with this disease, but should also lead to important information about the neuropsychological substrates mediating normal object representation and attention. The proposal is divided into two sections. First, a series of classification and inspection time tasks incorporating several types of multidimensional stimuli that vary in their degree of feature integrality will be used to systematically assess differences between AD patients and normal controls in the representations mediating object perception. Second, these same stimuli will be used in a series of visual search and illusory conjunction tasks in order directly assess interactions between attentional and representional deficits in AD.