The Cognitive Neuroscience of Selective Attention in Dynamic Behavioral and Psychological Contexts

从识别冰箱里要找的东西到注意到交通信号从绿色变成红色，我们关注世界的方式对于我们日常生活中安全、有效的导航至关重要。因此，毫不奇怪，在过去几十年里，认知神经科学的许多研究都集中在了解我们如何关注周围的世界，这些研究不仅涉及理解神经系统在大脑中是如何组织的，而且涉及这些系统如何映射到我们的大脑结构。为了提高我们对注意力的基本认识，我的建议涉及了解我们对世界上的物体和事件的注意力是如何随着时间的推移而动态变化的，以回应我们在日常活动中的所作所为和思考--例如散步、购物和开车。**具体地说，计划中的研究涉及使用基于脑电的测量方法来研究三种不同动态背景下的注意力。第一个问题是我们如何利用我们的注意力来引导我们的身体活动，或走路。这里的重点是研究有跌倒问题的老年人，跌倒是老年人的一种行动障碍，与注意力能力缺陷有关。通过了解跌倒者的注意力能力是如何受损的，我们可以帮助理解当一切正常工作时，我们如何利用我们的注意力来指导行动。第二种注意力环境与走神有关，也就是我们都有一种自然的倾向，会把注意力从当前正在做的事情上转移到其他事情上，比如昨晚的晚餐谈话或即将到来的假期计划。正如我在实验室所做的工作所显示的那样，我们现在知道，走神的时间段会极大地减少我们对外部世界的注意力。一组新的研究计划更仔细地描述这些影响的广度和深度。最后，第三种注意情境与心理因素有关，这些心理因素会引发对外部世界中物体和事件的高度注意状态--对物体的所有权，例如购物时，以及接触到新奇事件或体验时，例如访问一个新国家时。这里的目标是研究这些情况如何引发高度注意状态，以及这种影响的时间进程。**我的建议对基础研究和如何将其应用于加拿大人的利益都具有关键影响。就纯科学而言，对注意力的研究长期以来一直集中在了解它如何帮助识别和识别视觉对象。这项提议的新奇之处在于研究了选择性视觉注意在调节我们与物理环境的日常互动中所起的更广泛的功能作用。就实际意义而言，该提案侧重于基础研究，但研究要坚定地着眼于与所涉及的临床影响相衔接。我们对老年人注意力缺陷的了解可以帮助我们理解如何更好地治疗老年人这个普遍存在的问题。我们对走神的了解可以帮助我们理解抑郁症和注意力缺陷障碍等障碍，这些问题关系到我们对外部世界的关注。我们对注意力和物体所有权的了解可能会让我们对强迫行为和强迫症有新的认识。但总而言之，这项研究不仅有望帮助我们加深对基本神经认知机制及其潜在临床后果的理解，而且这些项目本身也是培训下一代加拿大认知神经科学家的绝佳机会。

From identifying the item we're looking for in the fridge to noticing a traffic signal changing from green to red, how we pay attention to the world is vital for safe, effective navigation through our everyday lives. Not surprisingly then, over the last several decades much research in cognitive neuroscience has centered on understanding how we go about paying attention to the world around us, research that concerns understanding not just how neural systems are organized in the brain, but how these systems map on to the structure of our minds. Towards advancing our basic knowledge of attention, my proposal concerns understanding how our attention to objects and events in the world dynamically changes over time, in response to what we're doing and thinking in the course of our on-going, everyday activities--such as walking, shopping, and driving.**Specifically, the planned studies involve using EEG-based measures of brain electrical activity to investigate attention in three different dynamic contexts. The first concerns how we use our attention to help guide our physical mobility, or walking. The focus here is on studying older individuals who have problems with falling--a mobility impairment in seniors linked to deficits in attentional capacities. By understanding how attentional capacities are impaired in fallers, we can help understand how we use our attention to guide mobility when everything is working normally. The second attentional context concerns mind wandering, or the natural tendency we all have for our thoughts to drift away from what we're currently doing, such as commonly happens when driving, to focus on other things, like last night's dinner conversation or plans for an upcoming holiday. As work in my lab has shown, we now know that periods of mind wandering dramatically reduce our attention to the outside world. A new set of studies plans to more carefully characterize the breadth and depth of these effects. Finally, the third attentional context concerns psychological factors that can trigger heightened attentional states to objects and events in the outside world--taking ownership over an object, such as when shopping, and being exposed to novel events or experiences, such as when visiting a new country. Here the goal is to examine how these situations can trigger heightened attentional states, and the time course of such effects.**My proposal has critical implications both for basic research and for how it can be applied for the benefit of Canadians. In terms of pure science, research on attention has long centered on understanding how it aids the identification and recognition of visual objects. The novelty of the proposal here is investigating the much broader functional role selective visual attention plays in mediating our everyday interactions with the physical environment. In terms of practical significance, the proposal focuses on basic research, but research that has a firm eye towards bridging to the clinical implications involved. What we learn about attentional deficits in fallers can help us to understand how to better treat this widespread problem in seniors. What we learn about mind wandering can help us to understand disorders such as depression and attention deficit disorder, issues that concern our attention to the outside world. And what we learn about attention and object ownership may give new insight into hording behaviors and obsessive/compulsive disorders. But taken together, the research doesn't just promise to help advance our understanding of basic neurocognitive mechanisms and their potential clinical consequences, but the projects themselves represent an outstanding opportunity for training the next generation of Canadian cognitive neuroscientists.