CAREER: How Memory Contributes to Goal-Directed Attention

记忆是我们许多行为的关键方面。我们用记忆来寻找周围的路，在人群中发现熟悉的面孔，并在说话和写作时记录我们的想法。记忆可以影响我们的许多行为的一个强大的方式是帮助引导我们注意什么。例如，在一个凌乱的厨房里，你可以用你的记忆来找到一个杯子。因此，虽然记忆的研究往往是为了它本身--例如，为了了解我们如何能够回忆过去，或者这个过程如何出错--但了解我们如何利用记忆来指导我们的注意力和行动也至关重要。该项目的目标是了解人类大脑的功能如何使我们能够使用过去的记忆来引导我们的注意力，以及对我们完成任务的速度和准确性的影响。在这样做的过程中，这项工作将突出记忆对于时刻注意力的至关重要性。这将填补科学研究中的一个重要空白，因为科学研究通常孤立地研究注意力和记忆力。它将强调我们过去和现在的经验的根本互动性质，以及教育环境中的学习和记忆如何在反馈回路中影响注意力和未来的学习。因此，该项目旨在确定记忆引导注意力的神经机制，重点关注存储在一个关键大脑区域的记忆，该区域对建立新记忆和检索旧记忆至关重要：海马体这将在两个目标中实现，其中使用多种方法：功能性磁共振成像，脑损伤患者的研究，眼动跟踪以及行为准确性和响应时间的测量。在目标1中，该项目将确定记忆引导注意力的神经回路及其与行为的关系。主要的假设是，包括海马体、前额叶和视觉皮层在内的大脑网络允许我们使用记忆来更新注意力目标，并在任务相关信息出现之前对其进行预测。这一假设将使用一种新的方法来测试表征大脑区域之间的相互作用（表征连接），whichenables调查区域之间的信息内容的同步性。在目标2中，该项目将确定记忆和注意力如何共同引导视觉探索。主要的假设是，海马记忆检索先前的注意力目标将影响视觉探索，注意力和新的情况下的记忆。这项工作将对教育产生创新影响，例如，使用眼动追踪来识别学生是否记住并注意到相关信息，即使他们不能用语言描述它。这两个目标将共同揭示记忆可以影响我们当下注意力行为的强大方式。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Memory is a critical aspect of many of our behaviors. We use memory to find our way around, to detect a familiar face in a crowd, and to keep track of our ideas as we speak and write. One powerful way that memory can affect so many of our behaviors is by helping to guide what we pay attention to. For example, in a messy kitchen, you can use your memory for where mugs are typically stored in order to find one. Therefore, although memory is often studied for its own sake - for example, to understand how we are able to reminisce about the past, or how that process can go wrong - it is also critically important to understand how we can use memory in the service of guiding our attention and actions. The goal of this project is to understand how the functioning of the human brain enables us to use memories of the past to direct our attention, and the consequences that has for how quickly and accurately we can accomplish tasks. In doing so, this work will highlight the critical importance of memory for moment-to-moment attention. This will fill an important gap in scientific research, which often studies attention and memory in isolation. It will highlight the fundamentally interactive nature of our past and current experiences, with implications for how learning and remembering in educational settings can affect attention and future learning in a feedback loop.This project therefore seeks to determine the neural mechanisms by which memories guide attention, focusing on the memories stored in a key brain region that is critical for building new memories and retrieving old ones: the hippocampus. This will be accomplished in two Aims, which use multiple methods: functional magnetic resonance imaging, studies of patients with brain lesions, eye tracking, and measures of behavioral accuracy and response times. In Aim 1, the project will determine the neural circuits for memory-guided attention and their relationship to behavior. The main hypothesis is that a brain network including the hippocampus and prefrontal and visual cortices allows us to use memory to update attentional goals and anticipate task-relevant information before it appears. This hypothesis will be tested using a novel approach of characterizing interactions between brain regions (representational connectivity), whichenables investigation of synchrony in information content between regions. In Aim 2, this project will establish how memory and attention jointly guide visual exploration. The main hypothesis is that hippocampal memory retrieval of prior attentional goals will influence visual exploration, attention, and memory in novel situations. This work will have innovative implications for education, e.g., the use of eye tracking to identify if students are remembering and attending to relevant information, even if they cannotverbally describe it. Together, these two Aims will start to uncover the powerful way that memories can influence our in-the-moment attentional behaviors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.