Neural and Behavioral Interactions Between Attention, Perception, and Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的总体目标是描述感知和记忆如何相互作用，既包括帮助将视觉体验转化为记忆的学习机制，也包括调节这种转化的有意机制。这个建议的具体目标是测试的假设，偶然学习统计视觉（视觉统计学习）是有限的，有选择地参加视觉信息，这种行为的相互作用，因为选择性注意如何调节人类视觉和记忆系统之间的神经相互作用。我们提出了一个两阶段的框架，在该框架中，选择性地注意到一个高层次的视觉功能/类别增加了枕叶皮层，代表低层次的功能和下颞叶皮层（IT），代表出席的功能/类别的区域之间的神经相互作用，并反过来在这个IT区域和内侧颞叶（MTL）的子区域参与视觉学习和记忆。除了评估基于特征的选择性注意力如何影响行为水平的学习，我们还将使用功能性磁共振成像来评估注意力如何影响任务相关脑区的诱发神经反应，以及在正在进行的任务背景下这些区域之间的神经交互。我们将开发一种创新的方法来研究神经相互作用，其中诱发反应和全局噪声源从数据中擦除，并在残差中评估区域相关性。这种背景连接方法为研究有意目标如何影响感知和学习提供了一种新的途径。目标1研究我们的框架的第一阶段，测试：选择性注意如何调节IT和枕叶皮层之间的背景连接，在retinotopic视觉皮层发生这种调制，以及这些变化是如何控制的额叶和顶叶皮层。目的2探讨我们的框架的第二阶段，首先建立的MTL在视觉统计学习的作用，然后测试：如何选择性注意调节IT和MTL之间的相互作用，在皮层和海马子区域的MTL这种调制发生，以及这些变化如何促进偶然的学习有关的统计信息和后来检索这些知识。总之，我们将选择性注意和学习之间的行为相互作用与代表视觉特征的机制和学习它们之间关系的机制之间的神经相互作用联系起来。该建议解决了该领域的几个关键问题，包括：注意力如何调节MTL，如何控制基于特征的注意力，不同的神经机制是否支持快速与长期的视觉学习，任务和目标是如何表示的，以及注意力和记忆提取是如何相关的。这项研究将提高我们对人类如何从视觉经验中学习以及视觉处理如何反过来受到学习影响的理解。这些进展将揭示在发育过程中以及在眼睛疾病、损伤或脑损伤后视觉功能的恢复和康复过程中发生的可塑性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of this research is to characterize how perception and memory interact, in terms of both the learning mechanisms that help transform visual experience into memory, and the intentional mechanisms that regulate this transformation. The specific goal of this proposal is to test the hypothesis that incidental learning about statistical regularities in vision (visual statistical learning) is limited to selectively attend visual information, and that this behavioral interaction arises because of how selective attention modulates neural interactions between human visual and memory systems. We propose a two-stage framework in which selective attention to a high-level visual feature/category increases neural interactions between regions of occipital cortex that represent low-level features and the region of inferior temporal cortex (IT) that represents the attended feature/category, and in turn between this IT region and medial temporal lobe (MTL) sub regions involved in visual learning and memory. In addition to assessing how feature-based selective attention influences learning at a behavioral level, we will use functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess how attention influences evoked neural responses in task-relevant brain regions, as well as neural interactions between these regions in the background of ongoing tasks. We will develop an innovative approach for studying neural interactions in which evoked responses and global noise sources are scrubbed from the data and regional correlations are assessed in the residuals. This background connectivity approach provides a new way to study how intentional goals affect perception and learning. Aim 1 examines the first stage of our framework, testing: how selective attention modulates background connectivity between IT and occipital cortex, where in retinotopic visual cortex this modulation occurs, and how these changes are controlled by frontal and parietal cortex. Aim 2 examines the second stage of our framework, first establishing the role of the MTL in visual statistical learning, and then testing: how selective attention modulates interactions between IT and the MTL, where in cortical and hippocampal sub regions of the MTL this modulation occurs, and how these changes facilitate incidental learning about statistical regularities and later retrieval of this knowledge. In sum, we relate behavioral interactions between selective attention and learning to neural interactions between the mechanisms that represent visual features and those that learn about their relations. This proposal addresses several key issues in the field, including: how attention modulates the MTL, how feature-based attention is controlled, whether different neural mechanisms support rapid versus long-term visual learning, how tasks and goals are represented, and how attention and memory retrieval are related. This research will improve our understanding of how humans learn from visual experience, and how visual processing is in turn influenced by learning. These advances will shed light on the plasticity that occurs during development and during the recovery and rehabilitation of visual function following eye disease, injury, or brain damage.