Subjective experience as a basis for reality monitoring over memory

“现实监控”是确定我们的记忆是外部产生的（比如我们感知到的东西的记忆），还是内部产生的（比如一个想法或想象的记忆）的过程。该项目旨在描述记忆现象学在现实监测过程中应用的神经和计算机制。重要的是，这种能力可能在情感性和精神病性精神健康障碍中出错。因此，更精确地描述这些机制将有助于我们了解它们是如何发生故障的，以及最终如何针对这种故障进行靶向治疗。研究1（2022年4月- 2023年1月）：个体在现实监测策略上存在差异吗？训练：Python机器学习课程，加速- spark机器学习学院（2022年4月至6月）虽然对现实监测性能的个体差异进行了大量研究，但对用于实现这一目标的策略的个体差异进行的调查很少。了解这种策略差异可以为精神健康障碍现实监测缺陷的个性化治疗提供信息。我将调查没有心理意象的人（一种被称为幻像症的情况）在监控现实和记忆的策略上是否有系统的不同。我将给一个在线现实监测任务，幻想个人和匹配的控制。我将使用计算模型来确定所使用的策略是否受到特质意象的调节。我将进行验证性和纵向复制，评估个体差异在三周内是否稳定。研究2（2023年1月- 2023年12月）：感觉和判断记忆是真实的神经机制是什么？对真实事物的认知判断可能与对真实事物的感觉分离开来，例如，当我们知道一个梦的记忆是真实的，但我们仍然觉得它是真实的。然而，与外显的现实判断相比，人们对现象学现实感觉的神经基础知之甚少。我将使用脑电图来确定现象学感觉的神经时间过程和记忆是真实的明确判断是否是可分离的。研究3:（2024年1月- 2025年1月）皮质再激活是否反映现实监测策略？方法：fMRI训练：fMRI过程中，记忆提取过程中编码相关模式的激活随记忆的生动性和细节性而发生参数变化。然而，目前尚不清楚皮层的分级再激活是否支持记忆的真实性。使用最近开发的技术来区分fMRI数据中的定性和定量个体差异，结合多元模式分析，我将评估现实监测中的个体差异是否由皮质再激活的定性或定量差异支持。总的来说，本项目旨在描述(1)个体在现实监测策略上的差异，以及(2)现实监测感觉和判断可能分离的神经和计算机制。这可能为更精确地治疗现实监测缺陷铺平道路，这些缺陷是专门针对特定个体的现实监测系统故障的方式量身定制的。

'Reality monitoring' is the process of establishing whether our memories were externally generated (such as a memory of something we perceived), or internally generated (such as a memory of a thought or imagination). This project aims to characterise the neural and computational mechanisms by which aspects of the phenomenology of memory are employed in the process of reality monitoring. Importantly, this ability can go awry in affective and psychotic mental health disorders. Therefore, more precise characterisation of these mechanisms will help us understand how they can malfunction, and ultimately how to target treatment for such malfunctioning.Study 1 (April 2022 - January 2023): Do individuals differ in reality monitoring strategy?Methods: online behavioural study, computational modellingTraining: Python Machine Learning course, Accelerate-Spark Machine Learning Academy (April-June 2022)While there has been much research into individual differences in reality monitoring performance, there has been little investigation into individual differences in the strategies used to accomplish this. Understanding such strategy differences could inform individualised treatment for reality monitoring deficits in mental health disorders. I will investigate whether people with no mental imagery (a condition known as aphantasia) differ systematically in their strategy used for reality monitoring over memory. I will give an online reality monitoring task to aphantasic individuals and matched controls. I will use computational modelling to establish whether strategy used is modulated by trait imagery. I will follow up with a confirmatory and longitudinal replication, assessing whether individual differences are stable over a three-week delay.Study 2 (January 2023 - December 2023): What are the neural mechanisms of the feeling vs. judgement that a memory is real?Methods: EEGTraining: EEG courseThe cognitive judgement that something is real can dissociate from the feeling that it was real, such as when the memory of a dream feels real even when we know it was a dream. However, little is known about the neural underpinnings of the phenomenological feeling of reality compared with explicit reality judgements. I will use EEG to establish if the neural time-courses of the phenomenological feeling and explicit judgement that a memory was real are dissociable.Study 3: (January 2024-January 2025) Does cortical reactivation reflect reality monitoring strategy?Methods: fMRITraining: fMRI courseReactivation of encoding-related patterns at memory retrieval varies parametrically with memory vividness and detail. However, it not known whether graded cortical reactivation supports how real a memory feels. Using a recently-developed technique to distinguish qualitative and quantitative individual differences in fMRI data, combined with multivariate pattern analysis, I will assess whether individual differences in reality monitoring are supported by qualitative or quantitative differences in cortical reactivation. ConclusionOverall, this project aims to characterise the neural and computational mechanisms by which (1) individuals differ in reality monitoring strategy, and (2) reality monitoring feeling and judgement may dissociate. This could pave the way for more precise treatments for reality monitoring deficits which are specifically tailored to the way in which a particular individual's reality monitoring system is malfunctioning.