The emotional modulation of attention by conditioned stimuli: cognitive and neural mechanisms

条件刺激对注意力的情绪调节：认知和神经机制

• 批准号: 341503-2007
• 负责人: Smith, Stephen
• 金额: $ 1.49万
• 依托单位: University of Winnipeg
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2007-01-01 至 2008-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=365800
• 关键词: emotional; modulation; attention; conditioned; stimuli

The ways in which we interact with the world, and even the ways in which we see the world, depend largely on how we focus our attention.  For example, when attention is distracted, people often fail to notice even salient objects or events that appear right before their eyes.  Many studies have investigated the ways in which attention is deployed and how it facilitates cognitive processing of abstract shapes and symbols.  Such stimuli have been used because they are convenient and easy to study. However, humans live in a world laden with emotional meaning; the traditional use of meaningless stimuli (e.g., patterns and colors) does not reflect this fact and thus can tell us little about how people use emotional information to guide their attention to potentially important aspects of their environments.       Dr. Stephen Smith and his colleagues have initiated a series of studies to identify how emotion influences our attention.  Using a combination of laboratory tests and brain-imaging studies, Dr. Smith is examining (1) what types of stimuli capture and hold attention, (2) what cognitive processes are related to this emotional modulation of attention, and (3) what brain areas are involved in these processes.  A critical component of this research is the fact that rather than simply focusing on innately emotional stimuli such as faces, the research will examine the degree to which learned emotional associations affect our ability to encode information.  Given that many of our emotional experience are learned associations between a stimulus (e.g., a car) and an emotional outcome (e.g., an accident), understanding how these associations influence attention is very important.  The results will provide new insight into emotion-attention interactions, and will be of interest both to cognitive-neuroscience researchers and to more applied clinical practitioners.

我们与世界互动的方式，甚至我们看待世界的方式，很大程度上取决于我们如何集中注意力。  例如，当注意力分散时，人们常常无法注意到出现在他们眼前的显着物体或事件。  许多研究调查了注意力的部署方式以及它如何促进抽象形状和符号的认知处理。  使用此类刺激是因为它们方便且易于研究。然而，人类生活在一个充满情感意义的世界里。传统上使用无意义的刺激（例如图案和颜色）并不能反映这一事实，因此无法告诉我们人们如何使用情感信息来引导他们对环境中潜在的重要方面的注意力。       斯蒂芬·史密斯博士和他的同事发起了一系列研究，以确定情绪如何影响我们的注意力。  史密斯博士结合实验室测试和大脑成像研究，正在研究（1）什么类型的刺激可以捕获并保持注意力，（2）哪些认知过程与这种注意力的情绪调节相关，以及（3）哪些大脑区域参与这些过程。  这项研究的一个关键组成部分是，该研究将考察习得的情绪关联对我们编码信息的能力的影响程度，而不是简单地关注面部等固有的情绪刺激。  鉴于我们的许多情感体验都是刺激（例如汽车）和情感结果（例如事故）之间习得的关联，了解这些关联如何影响注意力非常重要。  研究结果将为情绪与注意力相互作用提供新的见解，并且会引起认知神经科学研究人员和更多应用临床实践者的兴趣。