CAREER: Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms of Attention Capture by Episodic Long-Term Memory

众所周知，注意力对学习和记忆至关重要，但人们对注意力如何受到过去记忆的影响知之甚少。 在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Deborah Hannula博士将进行眼动追踪与功能性MRI相结合的实验，以表征通过情景长期记忆捕获注意力的认知和神经过程。这些研究将解决长期记忆提取，特别是负面记忆的提取如何影响目标导向行为的问题，方法是：a）识别与基于记忆的捕获相关的神经机制，以及B）识别避免和脱离这种捕获的方法。 本研究结合记忆和注意这两个典型的独立研究领域，探讨记忆提取背景下的注意。 这种综合的方法更接近于理解大脑在真实的世界中运作时发生的高度互动的认知过程。通过长期记忆表征注意捕获是重要的，因为在某些情况下长期记忆检索是不期望的（例如，创伤后应激障碍）。识别抑制或脱离长期记忆的注意力的神经机制可能会导致新的发展，有助于治疗精神病患者的这些症状。为了补充上述研究目标，PI还将实施一项教育计划，为学生和社区成员提供交互式和可访问的认知科学介绍，重点是记忆和注意力。

Attention is well known to be critically important for learning and memory but relatively less is known about how attention could be influenced by what one remembers from the past. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Deborah Hannula will conduct experiments combining eye-tracking with functional MRI to characterize the cognitive and neural processes underlying the capture of attention by episodic long-term memory. These studies will address questions about how long-term memory retrieval, particularly retrieval of negative memory, can influence goal-directed behavior by a) identifying the neural mechanisms that are correlated with memory-based capture, and b) identifying ways to avoid and disengage from such capture. This project combines memory and attention, two typically separated areas of studies, to investigate attention in the context of memory retrieval. This integrative approach moves one step closer to gaining an understanding of the highly interactive cognitive processes taking place when the brain operates in the real world. Characterization of attention capture by long-term memory is important because in some situations long-term memory retrieval is undesirable (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder). Identifying the neural mechanisms involved in suppressing or disengaging attention from long-term memory may lead to new developments that could help remediate these symptoms in psychiatric populations. To complement the research objectives outlined above, the PI will also implement an education plan that will provide students and community members with interactive and accessible introductions to cognitive science, with an emphasis on memory and attention.