Factors contributing to natural variation in perceptual and cognitive skills

在我的实验室里，我们研究人们如何使用感官信息来感知他们的世界并在其中移动。我们还对他们如何在记忆中保存关于物体和人的信息，以及如何形成心理图像感兴趣。我们研究这些能力在一生中是如何变化的，以及在运动或音乐等方面的特殊训练、大脑损伤或影响大脑发育的问题可能会如何影响它们。 我计划未来5年的工作将涉及2名博士生，3名硕士研究生和几名本科生。其中一些工作将研究当我们看着人和物体时，我们的身体如何反应。当我们看到某人做出面部表情时，我们大脑中当我们做出同样面部表情时被激活的部分显示出更多的活动。自主神经系统控制着我们的心率和呼吸等，它会做出反应。即使是运动系统也会做出反应，因此，当我们观看别人的面部表情时，我们往往会自动模仿他们的面部表情。我们感兴趣的是，关于我们所看到的这些不同反应的信息如何被用来帮助我们弄清楚我们正在观察的人可能会有什么感觉，以及他们的感觉是否即将改变。 我们也感兴趣的是，当人们看着物体时会发生什么。我们对某些对象的反应与对其他对象的反应不同。例如，当我们观察工具时，大脑中实际使用这些工具的部分活动增加。我们想知道物体的特性如何影响我们思考它们的能力(例如，从另一个角度想象它们会是什么样子)，并关注我们周围发生的其他事情。 我们还对特殊训练如何改变我们对某些类型的感官信息的处理和反应感兴趣。一些研究表明，游泳等运动的训练会改变我们对身体如何运动的信号的处理方式。我们想看看它是否也会影响运动员如何处理和解释其他人的动作。 最后，我们计划的工作将帮助我们更多地发现导致感知和认知能力个体差异的因素。我们想知道为什么有些人似乎对某些类型的感官信息过于敏感或不敏感，以及这是否会影响他们对自己和周围世界的感觉的理解。更多地了解这一点可能有助于解释一些相互矛盾的发现，并为许多现象提供新的线索。它还可能帮助我们在未来设计更好的研究。 我们将开展的基础研究将有助于目前关于我们的大脑和身体如何协同工作的理论，以帮助我们理解周围的世界。归根结底，这种基础研究可能对理解和治疗以知觉和社交困难为特征的疾病，如自闭症谱系障碍具有重要意义。

In my lab, we study how people use sensory information to perceive their world and move about in it. We are also interested in how they hold information about objects and people in memory, and form mental images. We study how these kinds of abilities change throughout life, and how they might be affected by special training in things like sports or music, or by brain injuries or problems affecting brain development. The work I have planned for the next 5 years will involve 2 PhD students, 3 MA students, and several undergraduates. Some of the work will examine how our bodies respond when we look at people and objects. When we see someone make a facial expression parts of our brains that are activated when we make the same facial expression ourselves show increased activity. The autonomic nervous system, which controls things like our heart rate and breathing, reacts. Even the motor system respondsso, we tend to mimic other people's facial expressions automatically as we watch them unfold. We are interested in studying how information about these different responses to what we see are used help us to figure out how the people we are watching might be feeling, and whether their feelings are about to change or not. We are also interested in what happens when people look at objects. We respond differently to some objects than others. For example, when we look at tools there is increased activity in parts of the brain that are involved in actually using those tools. We want to know how properties of objects affect our ability to think about them (e.g., to imagine what they would look like from another angle), and to pay attention to other things that are happening around us. We are also interested in how special training can change how we process and react to certain kinds of sensory information. Some research suggests that training in sports like swimming changes how we process cues about how our own bodies move. We want to see if it might also affect how athletes process and interpret the movements of other people. Finally, the work that we have planned will help us discover more about factors that contribute to individual differences in perceptual and cognitive abilities. We want to understand why some people seem either overly-sensitive or insensitive to certain kinds of sensory information, and whether this affects how they make sense of their own feelings, and of the world around them. Learning more about this may help to explain some contradictory findings and shed new light on many phenomena. It may also help us to design better studies in the future. The basic research we will carry out will contribute to current theories about how our brains and bodies work together to help us to make sense of the world around us. Ultimately, this kind of basic research may have important implications for understanding and treating conditions characterized by perceptual and social difficulties, such as autism spectrum disorders.