Contextual guidance of attention by emotional information

我的实验室研究的是情绪和个人经历调节选择性注意力、行动和记忆的神经认知过程。选择性注意是我们根据环境调整感官系统的过程，从而使最相关的东西达到意识并决定行动。近年来，将注意力解析为自上而下（显性任务需求控制引导）和自下而上（刺激特征自动引导）的经典模型受到了挑战。目前的模型强调个人的历史可以引导注意力的多种途径，通常是在意识之外。我自己的经验和理论贡献，专注于情感历史在多个时间尺度上引导注意力的作用，在这种对话中发挥了重要作用。本研究的主要假设是，在一个动态的优先空间中，个人经历和背景会影响情绪显著性如何与其他内隐的注意力引导源（如期望）相互作用。本提案中描述的研究包括两个不同的研究方向，代表了这种广泛的方法。我们的方法包括功能磁共振成像（fMRI）、脑电图（EEG）、形式化建模和行为测量，以预测情绪显著性在不同情境下如何动态引导注意力和行动。在此，我提出两条研究思路。第一个目标是测试预测与情绪/动机关联引导注意力的机制假设。在这里，我们将采用计算建模和心理物理技术来研究这些因素是如何动态地影响注意力的，因为特定的刺激特征与惩罚的威胁（令人厌恶的白噪音爆发）或金钱奖励的承诺有关。这种研究在工业和专业培训中具有很高的价值，因为这些领域需要预测在复杂和充满情绪的环境中的注意力部署。第二项研究发现，情绪情境（环境中的情绪信息）对定位空间目标能力的影响取决于信息的感官形态。这方面的研究将使用功能磁共振成像来检查情绪对空间感知的影响。在这里，我们将识别神经通路（例如，早期和晚期的感觉皮质），当在情绪存在的情况下，整合来自相同和不同感觉模式的信息时，有助于有效定位物体的能力。本研究将为通过多种感官的情绪分散对需要精确空间注意力的行为的影响提供重要信息，并确定这些影响是如何通过特定的神经通路介导的。这些发现将与专业人员的培训有关，如急救人员和医疗保健专业人员，在高唤醒情况下工作。

My lab's research investigates the neurocognitive processes by which emotion and personal experience tune selective attention, action, and memory. Selective attention is the process by which we tune our sensory systems to the environment so that what is most relevant reaches awareness and determines action. Recently, classic models parsing attention into top-down (controlled guidance by explicit task demands) and bottom up (automatic guidance by stimulus features) processes have been challenged. Current models emphasize multiple routes which individual's history can guide attention, often outside of awareness. My own empirical and theoretical contributions, focusing on the role of emotional history in guiding attention at multiple time scales, have played an influential role in that dialogue. The research proposed here is guided by the overarching hypothesis that personal history and context influence how emotional salience interacts with other implicit sources of attentional guidance (e.g., expectation) within a dynamic priority space. The studies described in this proposal, which comprise two distinct lines of research, are representative of this broad approach. Our methods include fMRI, EEG, , formal modeling, and behavioral measures to predict how emotional salience will dynamically guide attention and action in distinct contexts. Here I propose two lines of research. The goal of the first is to test hypotheses about mechanisms by which prediction vs. emotional/motivational relevance guide attention. Here we will employ computational modeling and psychophysical techniques to examine how these factors dynamically influence attention as specific stimulus features come to be associated with threat of punishment (aversive bursts of white noise) or promise of monetary reward. Such research will have high value in industry and professional training where there is a need to predict attentional deployment in complex and emotion-laden environments. The second builds on the discovery that effects of emotional context (emotional information in the environment) on the ability to locate spatial targets depends on the sensory modality of the information. This line of research will use fMRI to examine the effects of emotion on spatial perception. Here we will identify the neural pathways (e.g., early vs. late sensory cortices) contributing to the ability to effectively localize objects when integrating information from sources in same vs. different sensory modalities in the presence of emotion. This research will provide crucial information on the impact of emotional distraction through multiple senses on performance of actions requiring precise spatial attention, and determine how these effects are mediated by specific neural pathways. Such findings will be relevant to training of professionals, such as first responders and healthcare professionals, functioning in high arousal situations.