Neural indices of online and offline states in human working memory

项目摘要 视觉工作记忆是维持当前事物的主动表征的中枢认知系统 相关信息工作记忆能力的个体差异反映了核心认知能力，如图所示。 通过与流动智力、学业成就和其他广泛的智力指标的密切相关， 功能此外，工作记忆缺陷是许多流行的心理健康障碍的标志， 例如注意力缺陷/多动症（ADHD）、精神分裂症和抑郁症。因此， 了解这一系统对于了解这些疾病的认知影响以及 精确评估临床干预措施的有效性。 这项提议的广泛目标是加强我们对神经信号的理解，这些信号在大脑中索引存储。 这个在线记忆系统，并使用这些信号来完善人类记忆的认知模型。一个关键 最近的发现是，在工作记忆中，指示存储的电生理信号可以是 分为两类。一类活动跟踪离散“项目”或 存储在工作记忆中的对象，而不考虑与每个对象相关的特定信息。 object.第二类活动替代地跟踪当前优先化的空间位置。 视野，而不考虑占据这些位置的独立物体的数量。拟议 工作将追求这一见解，完善人类工作记忆的神经和认知模型。 最后，虽然工作记忆在复杂认知中起着关键作用，但有一个明确的共识， 工作记忆必须与性质上不同的记忆系统相互作用（例如，长期记忆） 离线存储信息的系统。虽然过去的工作往往寻求范式，允许 “纯”评估工作记忆或长期记忆，有强烈的工作需要，直接 研究这些系统之间的动态协作。因此，本项目的一个中心主题将是 确定促使在线和离线内存状态之间转换的具体因素。 具体而言，该提案将跟进过去的工作，表明观察员将正在进行的连续 将经验转化为离散的“事件”表征，事件之间的边界影响着 信息片段在存储器中被集成和分离。该项目将使用时间分辨 电生理学测量工作记忆中的存储，以确定事件边界是否提示 冲洗在线记忆，为后续事件的信息让路，即使有 足够的容量用于并发存储。这将提供新的见解的具体认知运作 这决定了在复杂的认知任务中，有限的在线记忆容量是如何被利用的。

PROJECT SUMMARY Visual working memory is a central cognitive system for maintaining active representations about currently relevant information. Individual differences in working memory ability reflect a core cognitive ability, as shown by robust correlations with fluid intelligence, scholastic achievement and other broad measures of intellectual function. Furthermore, working memory deficits are a signature of many prevalent mental health disorders, such as attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia and depression. Thus, a detailed understanding of this system is important for understanding the cognitive effects of these disorders, and for precise assessments of the efficacy of clinical interventions. The broad goal of this proposal is to enhance our understanding of the neural signals that index storage in this online memory system, and to use those signals to refine cognitive models of human memory. A key recent discovery is that the electrophysiological signals that index storage in working memory can be divided into two distinct categories. One class of activity tracks the number of discrete “items” or objects that are stored in working memory, without regard to the specific information associated with each object. A second class of activity instead tracks the spatial positions that are currently prioritized in the visual field, without regard to the number of independent objects occupying those positions. The proposed work will pursue this insight, refining both neural and cognitive models of human working memory. Finally, while working memory plays a critical role in complex cognition, there is a clear consensus that working memory must interact with qualitatively different memory systems (e.g., long term memory) that store information “offline” or out of mind. While past work has often sought paradigms that allow a “pure” assessment of working memory or long term memory, there is a strong need for work that directly examines the dynamic collaboration between these systems. Thus, a central theme of this project will be to identify the specific factors that encourage transitions between online and offline memory states. Specifically, the proposal will follow up on past work showing that observers divide up ongoing continuous experiences into discrete “event” representations, and that the boundaries between events influence which pieces of information are integrated and segregated in memory. This project will use time-resolved electrophysiological measures of storage in working memory to determine whether event boundaries prompt the flushing of online memories to make way for information about subsequent events, even when there is adequate capacity for concurrent storage. This will provide new insight into the specific cognitive operations that determine how limited online memory capacity is deployed in complex cognitive tasks.