Reflexive and controlled processes in attention

在任何给定的时刻，环境中可用的视觉信息都远远超过我们能够有效处理的范围。视网膜是我们眼睛后部的光敏组织，我们的大脑只会从这些视觉信息中选择一部分来达到有意识的意识。其中一个主要的选择过程发生在注意系统中，它会突出环境中的某些信息，同时抑制其他信息。在接下来的五年里，我们要解决的主要问题是这个最初的选择过程：它背后的机制是什么？限制是什么？流程有多灵活？典型的硬性选择过程会被个人目标所覆盖吗？注意选择的规则是否可以内隐学习，这是否与有意识地意识到规则一样有效？注意过程是如何与其他认知能力相互作用的，比如工作记忆（在信息从视线中消失后仍能保持在线状态的能力）？两个学院表现出相同的能力限制吗？当一个人被征税时，他们是如何相互干扰的？此外，我们将展示注意力和工作记忆过程是如何在大脑中实现的，以及它们在多大程度上共享相同的神经资源。这反过来将促进我们对脑损伤后观察到的一些认知障碍的理解。

At any given moment in time there is considerably more visual information available in the environment than we can efficiently deal with. From the visual information impinging on our retinae, the light sensitive tissue at the back of our eyes, our brain selects only a subset to reach conscious awareness. One of the major selection processes is happening in the attentional system which will highlight certain information in the environment while at the same time suppressing the rest. The main questions we will be addressing over the next five years are concerned with this initial selection process: What are the mechanisms behind it? What are the limitations and how flexible is the process? Can typically hard-wired selection processes be overwritten by an individual's goals? Can the rules for attentional selection be learned implicitly and is this as effective as conscious awareness of rules? How do attentional processes interact with other cognitive faculties such as working memory (the ability to maintain information online after it has been removed from view)? Do both faculties show the same capacity limits? How do they interfere with each other when one is taxed? Furthermore, we will show how attentional and working memory processes are implemented in the brain and to what extent they share the same neural resources. This in turn will advance our understanding of some cognitive disorders observed after brain damage.