Neuronal correlates of cross-modality attentional competition

为什么很难同时阅读和听新闻，即在不同形式的刺激之间分配注意力？到目前为止，只有很少的研究调查了跨模态注意力竞争，大多数是用行为方法。例如，我们对视觉和听觉刺激之间的注意力竞争的神经元关联几乎一无所知。我们的第一个功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）研究结果表明，跨模态注意力竞争与一组额顶叶区域和相关模态特定区域的活动抑制有关。然而，他们不允许我们具体说明这个额顶叶网络在不同程度和形式的注意力竞争中的功能。在这个项目中提出的实验，解决了这个问题。他们测试了不同程度的跨模态和模态内注意力竞争对神经元活动的影响。因此，不同的方法，包括功能磁共振成像，患者研究和行为实验的收敛强度被使用。特别是，行为实验将开发用于功能磁共振成像和临床人群的范例，分别用于描述参与大脑系统的潜在神经过程。总之，拟议的实验应该有助于更好地理解大脑中的注意力竞争。

Why is it hard to read and listen to the news at the same time, i.e. to divide attention between stimuli from different modalities? So far only very few studies investigated cross-modality attentional competition, most of them with behavioural methods. Almost nothing is known about neuronal correlates of attentional competition between, for example, visual and auditory stimuli. The results of our first functional Magnet Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study indicated that cross-modality attentional competition is correlated to a suppression of activity in set of frontoparietal regions and associated modality-specific areas. However, they did not allow us to specify the function of this frontoparietal network in different degrees and forms of attentional competition. The experiments, which are proposed in this project, address this question. They test how neuronal activity is influenced by different degrees of cross-modality and within-modality attentional competition. Thereby, the converging strength of different methods, including fMRI, patient studies and behavioural experiments are used. In particular, behavioural experiments will develop paradigms for use in fMRI and clinical populations, used respectively for characterising underlying neural processes in terms of participating brain systems. Altogether, the proposed experiments should contribute to a better understanding of attentional competition in the brain.