Low-Level Constraints on High-Level Selection

描述(申请人提供)：心理集合是高级表征 规范较低级别的行动选择。尽管心理上的相关性 设定连贯和有目的的行动，相对较少知道如何 它们是在面对内部或外部时选择和维护的 干扰。这项提议的中心论点是，更好的 对集合水平过程的理解可以通过观察交互来实现 在心理集合和较低级别的表示之间，这些表示限制了 自下而上的方式(即，刺激或响应键的位置)。具体来说， 提出了一个绑定与动作相关的较低级别的自动流程 对心理定势的表征(例如，刺激或反应位置) 是行动的控制者。集合级代码与低级代码之间的绑定 通常应该服务于稳定和连贯的目标导向行动。 但是，这样的绑定可能会阻碍有效控制 低级代码和高级代码之间的关联不明确或高度模糊 变量。特别是，当高级控制是 受损，如在某些患者组中，尽管程度较轻，但在 正常衰老的背景。 高级代码和低级代码之间的绑定引起的干扰可能 这也是在老年人中观察到的行政控制缺陷的核心。 因此，在大多数拟议的实验中，我建议探索 老年人更容易受到模棱两可的负面影响的假设 低水平和设定水平方面之间的映射比年轻人更多。这样的一个 结果将指向与年龄有关的问题，即高级别的“保持距离” 共享低级别元素的表示形式。拟议的项目承诺提供一个 低级知觉/注意过程和执行力之间的桥梁 进程以及对年龄差异这一重要问题的回答 执行控制。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mental sets are high-level representations that regulate lower-level selection of action. Despite the relevance of mental sets for coherent and purposeful action, relatively little is known about how they are selected and maintained in the face of internal or external interference. The central thesis of this proposal is that a better understanding of set-level processes can be attained by looking at interactions between mental sets and lower-level representations that constrain action in a bottom-up manner (i.e., locations of stimuli or response keys). Specifically, an automatic process is proposed that binds action-related lower-level representations (e.g., stimulus or response locations) to the mental set that is in control of the action. Bindings between set-level and low-level codes should usually be in the service of stable and coherent goal-directed action. However, such bindings may get in the way of efficient control when the association between low-level and high-level codes is ambiguous or highly variable. In particular, problems should occur when high-level control is impaired, as in some patient groups and, albeit to lesser degree also in the context of normal aging. Interference elicited from bindings between high-level and low-level codes may also lie at the heart of executive-control deficits observed in old adults. Therefore, in a majority of the proposed experiments I suggest to explore the hypothesis that old adults are much more negatively affected by ambiguous mappings between low-level and set-level aspects than young adults. Such a result would point to age-related difficulties with "keeping apart" high-level representations that share low-level elements. The proposed project promises a bridge between lower-level perceptual/attentional processes and executive processes as well as answers to the important question of age differences in executive control.