Attentional Mechanisms in Multisensory Environments

我们有选择地将注意力集中在感官环境元素上的能力是一种关键的认知能力， 功能，使我们能够增强高优先级刺激的处理。一个典型的例子是“鸡尾酒 一种“聚会”效应，一个人可以有选择地专注于某个特定的发言者，而忽略其他人。 对话。在视觉中，注意视野的特定区域会导致更快更好的检测 和对该区域刺激的辨别。 电生理学和血液动力学脑成像研究都表明，自上而下的执行 注意力机制可以影响特定模态皮层中的早期感觉处理。最近的研究 在人类中使用事件相关的功能性MRI（fMRI）已经暗示了额顶叶网络， 视觉注意力的执行控制。然而，到目前为止，相对较少的工作已经调查了注意力是如何 在感觉形态之间切换或者协调。因此，目前还不清楚是哪些大脑机制， 区域和控制注意力的资源是超模态的，并且是模态特异性的。而且，真实的 包括鸡尾酒会上的演讲者在内的对象具有需要关注的多感官特性， 感知和整合。因为多感觉整合涉及来自于 不同的感觉通道，不清楚相同的注意力机制是否会在不同的感觉通道中起作用。 多感官环境，如在单一的情况下使用。例如，注意一个特征或 多感觉对象的方面（例如，说话者的脸）可能导致 注意（例如，以包含说话者的声音）。 本项目建议将事件相关电位（ERPs）和事件相关功能磁共振成像结合起来进行研究 注意力在多感官环境中运作的机制。这将包括研究 执行控制机制和大脑回路，协调和切换不同感官之间的注意力 模态，以及注意力如何影响和相互作用的处理和整合的多感官 刺激。在注意力任务中记录ERP和fMRI测量的大脑活动将揭示 不仅是大脑区域，有助于多感官注意力的运作，但也有时间和顺序， 激活，从而增强我们对潜在机制的理解。注意力缺陷形成关键 各种神经系统疾病和精神疾病的组成部分，从而阐明了基本的

Our ability to selectively focus attention on elements of our sensory environment is a critical cognitive function that enables us to enhance the processing of high priority stimuli. A classic example is the "cocktail party" effect, in which a person can focus selectively on a particular speaker while tuning out other conversations. In vision, attending to a particular region of the visual field results in faster and better detection and discrimination of stimuli in that region. Both electrophysiological and hemodynamic brain imaging studies have shown that top-down executive attentional mechanisms can influence early sensory processing in modality-specific cortices. Recent studies using event-related functional MRI (fMRI) in humans have implicated a fronto-parietal network in the executive control of visual attention. As yet, however, relatively little work has investigated how attention is switched or coordinated between sensory modalities. Thus, it is not yet clear which brain mechanisms, regions, and resources controlling attention are supramodal and which are modality specific. Moreover, real objects, including speakers at cocktail parties, have multisensory characteristics that need to be attended, perceived, and integrated. Because multisensory integration involves synthesis of information derived from different sensory channels, it is not clear that the same attentional mechanisms will be operative in a multisensory environment as are employed in a unisensory situation. For example, attention to one feature or aspect of a multisensory object (e.g., the face of a speaker) might lead to a cross-modal spreading of attention (e.g., to encompass the speaker's voice). The present project proposes to combine event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related fMRI to study the mechanisms by which attention operates in multisensory environments. This will include the study of executive control mechanisms and brain circuits that coordinate and switch attention between different sensory modalities, as well as how attention influences and interacts with the processing and integration of multisensory stimuli. Recording both ERP and fMRI measures of brain activity during the attentional tasks will reveal not only the brain areas that subserve multisensory attentional operations, but also the timing and sequence of their activations, thereby enhancing our understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Attentional deficits form key components of a variety of neurological disorders and mental illnesses, and thus elucidating the basic