Aspects of Attention and Adaptive Memory

这个提议继续了我对负责注意力的系统和那些负责更高层次处理的系统的研究，比如通过记忆检索来识别意义和“客体性”。本资助申请侧重于两个方向的互动。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，可以在没有注意的情况下完成，但最近的研究对这一观点提出了挑战。我将继续提出这样的问题：为了让我们能够理解和评估刺激的身份，刺激是否有必要成为注意力的焦点，我还将研究是否存在一些特殊情况，在这些情况下，大部分信息可以在不应用焦点注意力的情况下被发现。第二个，很大程度上被忽视的问题是，涉及意义计算和对象识别的过程是否对注意力的操作有影响。换句话说，注意力的范围和激活是否取决于加工的产物？是否有可能通过操纵刺激的语义显著性等因素来影响注意力如何被吸引到或保持在一个位置或物体上？当考虑到我们的感知系统是在环境的选择压力下进化的这一事实时，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力系统，使我们的注意力被“保持”在充分处理比喻的过程中，直到我们能够做出适当的决定。这项工作的一个重要而新颖的焦点，将是考虑塑造我们今天在工作中看到的注意力系统的进化适应。***最后，我的实验室和其他人的研究表明，在之前被认为是“标准”的注意力现象中，存在相当大的个体差异。我目前的计划是继续研究我和其他人使用的每一个范式（例如，选择，外生和内生线索，启动，双重任务，视觉搜索），以建立共同注意效应的普遍性和稳定性。这些问题将在公认的范例和程序的背景下进行调查。我的贡献是采用这些已建立的范例，并以新颖的方式将它们结合起来，提出以前没有解决的问题。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关于注意力对更高层次过程影响的一些理论解释的基础，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.  **