Updating of attentional topography following eye movements

描述(申请人提供)：视觉场景往往杂乱无章，我们无法处理每一个细节。对相关物体或位置的注意力和眼球运动可以加快对重要事件的反应。注意力和眼球运动通常是紧密耦合的，但如果我们专注于一个位置，同时将眼睛转移到场景的其他部分，会发生什么？随着每一次眼球运动，我们对世界的看法都会在视网膜上发生变化。那么，我们内部对参与位置的表示会发生什么？初步结果表明，注意力优势会随着眼球的每次运动而改变，在与任务无关的位置留下剩余的注意力优势，需要100-200毫秒的时间才能衰减。因此，即使任务是在工作记忆中保持空间坐标(以世界为中心)，空间注意力似乎在扫视后立即保持在视网膜(以眼睛为中心)坐标中。本研究旨在进一步研究这一初步效应，以更全面地阐明眼球运动后注意地形图的更新。目标1将探索更长的时间间隔，看看预期和背景是否会影响这些时间进程。目标1也将探索这种效应的空间范围。目标2将研究不同任务要求下注意地形图的变化，包括视网膜坐标在行为上与记忆保持相关的任务，利用平稳追逐眼球运动而不是眼跳的任务，以及任务相关位置代表记忆引导扫视的目标的任务。因此，这项拟议的研究调查了许多认知和行为系统是如何相互作用的，特别是那些涉及注意力、工作记忆和眼动的系统。它使用了一种多学科方法，旨在探索这些相互作用的行为含义、神经基础和理论模型。与NIMH使命一致的公共卫生相关性，该提案旨在推进基础研究，了解正常运作的大脑如何将自上而下的认知动机(以注意力或工作记忆需求的形式)与自下而上的视觉刺激变化相结合。鉴于认知和眼动缺陷都存在于各种精神疾病中，在ADHD、自闭症和精神分裂症等疾病中，通过眼球运动维持注意力的能力可能会出现异常功能。然而，为了将这些发现应用于临床人群，提案中概述的基础研究对于更充分地了解正常功能成年人的眼球运动和认知之间的相互作用是必要的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Visual scenes are often cluttered, and we cannot process every detail. Attention and eye movements to relevant objects or locations can speed reactions to important events. Attention and eye movements are often tightly coupled, but what if we attend to one location, while moving our eyes to other parts of a scene? Our image of the world shifts on the retina with each eye movement. What, then, happens to our internal representation of the attended location? Preliminary results indicate that attentional benefits shift with each eye movement, leaving residual attentional benefits at task-irrelevant locations that take 100-200ms to decay. Spatial attention thus appears to be maintained in retinotopic (eye-centered) coordinates immediately after a saccade, even when the task is to hold the spatiotopic (world-centered) coordinates in working memory. This proposal aims to further investigate this preliminary effect to more fully elucidate the updating of attentional topography that takes place following an eye movement. Aim 1 will probe longer time intervals to see if expectation and context influence these timecourses. Aim 1 will also probe the spatial extent of this effect. Aim 2 will investigate shifts in attentional topography under different task demands, including a task in which the retinotopic coordinates are behaviorally relevant to hold in memory, a task utilizing smooth pursuit eye movements instead of saccades, and a task in which the task-relevant location represents the target of a memory-guided saccade. The proposed research thus investigates how a number of cognitive and behavioral systems interact, specifically those involving attention, working memory, and eye movements. It uses a multidisciplinary approach designed to explore the behavioral implications, neural underpinnings, and theoretical models of these interactions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Consistent with the NIMH mission, the proposal aims to advance basic research in understanding how a normally functioning brain can integrate top-down cognitive motivation (in the form of attention or working memory demands) with bottom-up changes in visual stimulation. Given that both cognitive and oculomotor deficits are present in a variety of mental illnesses, it is possible that the ability to sustain attention across eye movements may function abnormally in such diseases as ADHD, autism, and schizophrenia. To apply these findings to clinical populations, however, the basic research outlined in the proposal is necessary to more fully understand interactions between eye movements and cognition in normally functioning adults.