The neural bases of attention in action and emotion.

我们的大量日常行为涉及到我们从不同感官所遇到的信息中整合我们的感知和行动。例如，当我们开车时，我们必须在视觉上关注道路的许多方面，如交通、天气状况、标志、行人等。如果我们还在听收音机、使用手机、喝咖啡或与乘客激烈争吵，这可能会变得更加复杂。我实验室的工作主要是了解大脑如何能够协调复杂行为所需的精神和身体活动。更具体地说，这项研究调查了在日常行为的计划和执行过程中，人类的注意力如何与行动和情感系统相互作用。这项研究使用了两种先进的认知神经科学技术，提供了关于复杂行为背后的特定大脑区域的信息(功能磁共振)，以及相关大脑活动的时间安排(事件相关电位)。其中一项研究旨在描绘出当我们对记忆中的目标采取延迟行动时，控制我们如何分配注意力的大脑过程。第二条线的研究将调查注意力系统如何与情绪系统相互作用。这项工作将考察情绪信息对模拟驾驶行为的分心效应以及这些效应的神经标记物。这项研究将进一步加深我们对人脑如何组织来自不同来源的大量与任务相关的信息以控制我们复杂的行为的理解。

A large amount of our everyday behaviour involves the integration of our perceptions and actions from information encountered by our different senses. For example, when we drive our car we must stay visually focused on many aspects of the road such as traffic, weather conditions, signage, pedestrians etc. This can become even more complex if we are also listening to the radio, using a cell phone, drinking a cup of coffee, or having a heated argument with a passenger. The work in my laboratory is primarily concerned with understanding how the brain is able to coordinate mental and physical activities that are required during complex behaviour. More specifically, this research investigates how human attention interacts with the action and emotion systems during the planning and execution of everyday behaviour. This research employs two sophisticated cognitive neuroscience techniques that provide information about the specific brain areas underlying complex behaviour (functional MRI), as well as the timing of the relevant brain activity (event-related potentials). One line of research is intended to map out the brain processes that control how we allocate our attention when we make delayed actions toward remembered targets. A second line of research will investigate how the attention system interacts with the emotion system. This work will examine the distracting effects of emotional information on simulated driving performance as well as the neural markers of these effects. This research will further our understanding of how the human brain organizes large amounts of task relevant information from different sources in order to control our complex behaviour.