Can cognitive training increase the capacity of perceptual attention?

人们对“大脑训练”的潜在认知益处兴趣大增。但是，证明这种益处具有普遍性的科学证据是有争议的。培训一直被认为会影响工作记忆、决策和智力等操作。只有有限的工作研究了训练是否影响知觉注意，知觉注意对意识很重要，在正常衰老和许多精神和神经疾病中受到损害。该项目使用行为测量、大脑成像和刺激方案以及计算建模的组合来检验感知注意力是否可以被训练。这一结果将对注意的心理学理论产生重要影响。

There has been an explosion of interest in the potential cognitive benefits of “brain training”. But scientific evidence for the generalizability of such benefits is controversial. Training has been argued to influence such operations as working memory, decision-making and intelligence. Only limited work has examined if training affects perceptual attention, which is important for awareness and is impaired in normal ageing and in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. The project examines whether perceptual attention can be trained, using a combination of behavioural measures, brain imaging and stimulation protocols, and computational modelling. The results will have important implications for psychological theories of attention.