Contextual guidance of attention by emotional information

我的实验室的研究调查了神经认知过程，通过这些过程，情绪和个人经验调整了选择性的注意力、行动和记忆。选择性注意是一个过程，我们通过这个过程调整我们的感官系统以适应环境，从而使最相关的东西到达意识并决定行动。最近，将注意力解析为自上而下(由明确任务要求控制的引导)和自下而上(通过刺激特征自动引导)过程的经典模型受到了挑战。目前的模型强调个人历史可以引导注意力的多条途径，通常是在意识之外。我自己的经验和理论贡献，侧重于情感历史在多个时间尺度上引导注意力的作用，在那次对话中发挥了重要作用。本文提出的研究是以个人历史和背景影响情绪突显如何与动态优先空间内的其他隐含的注意指导来源(如期望)相互作用的假设为指导的。本提案中描述的研究包括两条截然不同的研究路线，代表了这一广泛的方法。我们的方法包括fMRI、EEG、正式建模和行为测量，以预测情绪显著如何在不同的背景下动态引导注意力和行动。在这里，我提出了两条研究路线。第一个实验的目的是检验关于预测与情绪/动机相关性引导注意力的机制的假设。在这里，我们将使用计算模型和心理物理技术来研究当特定的刺激特征与惩罚威胁(厌恶的白噪声突发)或金钱奖励承诺相关时，这些因素如何动态地影响注意力。这项研究在工业和专业培训中将具有很高的价值，因为在这些行业和专业培训中，需要预测复杂和充满情感的环境中的注意部署。第二种建立在这样的发现之上，即情绪环境(环境中的情绪信息)对定位空间目标的能力的影响取决于信息的感觉通道。这一系列研究将使用功能磁共振成像来研究情绪对空间知觉的影响。在这里，我们将识别神经通路(例如，早期和晚期感觉皮质)，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，有助于有效地定位对象的能力。这项研究将提供关于情绪分散通过多个感官对需要精确空间注意的动作的执行的影响的关键信息，并确定这些影响是如何通过特定的神经通路来调节的。这些发现将与培训在高唤醒情况下发挥作用的专业人员有关，例如急救人员和医疗保健专业人员。

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.