Attention learning and memory: the fluency of processing

为了能够参与、学习和记忆，我们必须拥有一套相关的认知技能，使我们能够选择、编码和检索信息。这些总体技能由过程组成，一些更基本（在许多技能中扮演中心角色），另一些更专业。在各种各样的条件下，这些过程以经验为基础的流畅性决定了我们处理信息的能力。关于注意力、学习和记忆的研究在很大程度上依赖于干扰和促进作为认知过程运作的基本线索。不相关的信息必须被忽略；否则，就会产生干扰（变慢和错误）。先前的相关处理，以及由此产生的相关信息的可用性，有助于当前的处理；这被表达为促进。该提案描述了一个持续的研究项目，其目标是理解流畅的信息处理。这项注意力研究考察了我们在面对来自另一个维度的竞争信息时，将注意力限制在一个维度上的能力，这些信息已经被流畅地（自动地）处理了。新的研究将扩展我长期以来在经典的Stroop颜色-单词干扰任务上的工作。提出的学习研究将在我的项目中开辟一个新的研究领域，连接注意力和记忆。重点将是内隐学习：在意识下学习。新工作的学习和再学习的内隐和甚至无人参与的联想将是特色。提出的记忆研究的特点是外显记忆和内隐记忆的对比：有意识记忆和无意识记忆。拟议的实验包括关于“生产效应”的新工作：提高对学习中大声说出的信息的外显记忆（但不是内隐记忆）。从长远来看，提出的新研究和相应的理论发展将导致对注意力、学习和记忆的流畅处理的更好的全面理解，并导致实用技能的发展，例如改进的学习技巧，以便在日常生活中优化它们。

To be able to attend, learn, and remember, we must possess a set of relevant cognitive skills that permit us to select, encode, and retrieve information.  These overarching skills are made up of processes, some more basic (playing central roles in many skills) and others more specialized.  The experience-based fluency of operation of these processes under a wide variety of conditions determines how well we process information.     Research on attention, learning, and memory relies heavily on interference and facilitation as fundamental clues to the operation of cognitive processes.  Irrelevant information must be ignored; if not, interference (slowing and errors) results.  Previous relevant processing, and the resulting availability of related information, assists current processing; this is expressed as facilitation.  This proposal describes a continuing program of research having as its goal the understanding of fluent information processing.     The proposed attention research examines our ability to restrict attention to one dimension in the face of competing information from another dimension that is fluently (automatically) processed.  New studies will expand on my longstanding work on the classic Stroop colour-word interference task.     The proposed learning research will open a new domain of research in my program, bridging attention and memory.  The focus will be on implicit learning:  learning beneath awareness.  New work on the learning and relearning of implicit and even unattended associations will be featured.     The proposed memory research features the contrast between explicit memory and implicit memory:  remembering with vs without awareness.  Proposed experiments include new work on "the production effect":  improved explicit (but not implicit) memory for information spoken aloud during study.     In the longer term, the proposed new research and the corresponding theoretical developments will lead to a better overall understanding of the fluent processing underlying attention, learning, and memory, and to the development of practical skills -- such as improved study techniques -- for their optimization in everyday life.