Investigating Cognitive & Neural Bases of Working Memory

描述（由申请人提供）：工作记忆是指当信息不再存在于环境中时能够临时在线维护和操作信息的认知能力。当代认知神经科学的一个日益重要的目标是确定有助于工作记忆表现的众多组成过程中哪些是由 PFC 支持的，哪些是由其他大脑系统支持的。本提案重点关注的组件流程是存储和直接促进存储的控制流程子集。这里描述的所有实验的理论框架是一种分布式过程观点，它认为大多数工作记忆功能不是由专门的记忆系统支持的，而是通过注意力协调招募大脑系统而产生的，这些系统已经进化到完成感觉、表征或动作相关的功能。该项目的具体目标是： 1. 检验以下假设：工作记忆存储功能在后皮质区域（而不是前额皮质）以特定领域的方式得到支持。 2. 检验以下假设：PFC 介导的控制过程可以保护工作记忆存储的内容免受干扰。干扰可能来自两个来源：外部和内部。一个。针对外部干扰的假设：背外侧 PFC 支持的注意力过滤机制控制来自环境中竞争刺激的干扰。 b.针对内部干扰的假设：由左下 PFC 支持的抑制控制机制介导主动干扰的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Working memory refers to the cognitive capacity that enables the temporary on-line maintenance and manipulation of information when that information is no longer present in the environment. An increasingly important goal for contemporary cognitive neuroscience is to determine which of the many component processes that can contribute to working memory performance are supported by PFC, and which are supported by other brain systems. The component processes that are the focus of this proposal are storage and the subset of control processes that directly facilitate storage. The theoretical framework informing all of the experiments described here is a distributed processes view that holds that most working memory functions are not supported by specialized memory systems, but rather that they arise through the coordinated recruitment, via attention, of brain systems that have evolved to accomplish sensory, representational, or action-related functions. The specific aims of this project are: 1. To test the hypothesis that working memory storage functions are supported in a domain-specific manner in posterior cortical areas, not in PFC. 2. To test the hypothesis that PFC-mediated control processes can protect the contents of working memory storage from interference. Interference can come from two sources, external and internal. a. Hypothesis addressing external interference: An attentional filtering mechanism supported by dorsolateral PFC controls interference from competing stimuli in the environment. b. Hypothesis addressing internal interference: An inhibitory control mechanism supported by left inferior PFC mediates the effects of proactive interference.