Aspects of Attention and Adaptive Memory

这一建议继续了我对负责注意力的系统和负责更高级别处理的系统的研究，例如通过记忆提取识别意义和“客观性”。此次拨款申请重点关注两个方向的互动。首先，注意力的分配(或缺乏)如何影响我们处理意义的能力？尽管长期以来的观点一直认为，识别许多刺激(例如，单词)的意义是自动的，可以在没有注意力的情况下完成，但最近的研究正在挑战这一观点。我将继续询问刺激是否有必要成为注意力的焦点，以便我们能够理解其身份并对其进行评估，我还将研究在某些特定情况下，是否可以在不应用焦点注意力的情况下发现许多此类信息。*第二个问题是，涉及意义计算和物体识别的过程是否会对注意力的运作产生影响。换句话说，注意的范围和激活是否取决于加工的产品？是否有可能通过操纵刺激的语义突显等因素来影响注意力被吸引到或保持在某个位置或物体上？当考虑到我们的感知系统是在环境中的选择性压力下进化的事实时，这个问题变得特别相关。例如，一个带有某种威胁迹象的物体或个人可能会影响我们的注意系统，这样就会让注意力完全地处理这些明喻，直到决定采取适当的行动。作为这项工作的一个重要而新颖的焦点，接下来将是考虑塑造我们今天工作中所看到的注意系统的进化适应。最后，我的实验室和其他实验室的工作表明，在以前被认为是“标准”注意现象的情况下，存在着相当大的个体差异。我目前的计划是继续检查我和其他人使用的每一种范式(例如，选择、外源性和内源性线索、启动、双重任务、视觉搜索)，以建立共同注意效应的共性和稳定性。*将在既定的模式和程序范围内调查这些问题。我的贡献是利用这些既定的范式，以新颖的方式将它们结合在一起，提出以前从未讨论过的问题。这些领域的试点工作表明，这些问题的答案将迫使我们重新评估当前一些关于注意力对更高水平过程的影响的理论描述的基础，反之亦然。**

This proposal continues my study of the systems responsible for attention and those responsible for higher-level processing such as the recognition of meaning and "object-ness," via memory retrieval.  This grant application focuses on the interaction from two directions.  First, how does the allocation of attention (or lack thereof) affect our ability to process meaning?  Although the longstanding view has been that recognizing the meaning of many stimuli (e.g., words) is automatic, and can be accomplished in the absence of attention, more recent work is challenging this view.  I will continue to ask whether it is necessary for a stimulus to be the focus of attention in order for us to be able to apprehend its identity and evaluate it, and I will also examine whether there are particular cases in which much of this information can be uncovered without the application of focal attention.***The second, and largely neglected, issue is whether processes involved in the computation of meaning and object recognition have consequences for the operation of attention. In other words, does the scope and activation of attention depend on the products of processing? Is it possible to affect how attention is attracted to, or held at, a location or object by manipulating factors such as the semantic saliency of the stimulus?  This question becomes particularly pertinent when considering the fact that our perceptual systems evolved in response to selective pressures in the environment.  For example, it is plausible that an object or individual carrying some indication of threat might affect our attentional systems such that attention is "held" to process that similes fully until a decision can be made about the proper action to take.  An important and novel focus of this work, then will be to consider the evolutionary adaptations that shaped the attentional systems that we see at work today.  ***Finally, work in my lab and others has shown that there are considerable individual differences in what were previously conceived to be "standard" attentional phenomena.  My current plan is to continue to examine each of the paradigms that I and others use (e.g., selection, exogenous and endogenous cueing, priming, dual-task, visual search) in order to establish the generality and stability of common attentional effects.  ***These questions will be investigated in the context of well-established paradigms and procedures.  My contribution is to take these established paradigms and combine them in novel ways to ask questions that have not been previously addressed.  Pilot work in these areas suggests that the answers to these questions will force us to re-evaluate the underpinnings of a number of current theoretical accounts of the effects of attention on higher level processes, and vice versa.  **