de Fockert J W, Rees G, Frith C D, Lavie N
Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. :
Science. 2001 Mar 2;291(5509):1803-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1056496.
The hypothesis that working memory is crucial for reducing distraction by maintaining the prioritization of relevant information was tested in neuroimaging and psychological experiments with humans. Participants performed a selective attention task that required them to ignore distractor faces while holding in working memory a sequence of digits that were in the same order (low memory load) or a different order (high memory load) on every trial. Higher memory load, associated with increased prefrontal activity, resulted in greater interference effects on behavioral performance from the distractor faces, plus increased face-related activity in the visual cortex. These findings confirm a major role for working memory in the control of visual selective attention.
工作记忆通过维持相关信息的优先级来减少干扰，这一假设在针对人类的神经影像学和心理学实验中得到了验证。参与者执行一项选择性注意任务，要求他们在工作记忆中每次记住一组数字序列，这些数字序列要么顺序相同（低记忆负荷），要么顺序不同（高记忆负荷），同时忽略干扰面孔。更高的记忆负荷与前额叶活动增加相关，导致干扰面孔对行为表现产生更大的干扰效应，同时视觉皮层中与面孔相关的活动也增加。这些发现证实了工作记忆在视觉选择性注意控制中的重要作用。
