Rutters Femke, Kumar Sanjay, Higgs Suzanne, Humphreys Glyn W
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK,
Exp Brain Res. 2015 Feb;233(2):519-28. doi: 10.1007/s00221-014-4132-5. Epub 2014 Oct 30.
Studies from our laboratory have shown that, relative to neutral objects, food-related objects kept in working memory (WM) are particularly effective in guiding attention to food stimuli (Higgs et al. in Appetite, 2012). Here, we used electrophysiological measurements to investigate the neural representation of food versus non-food items in WM. Subjects were presented with a cue (food or non-food item) to either attend to or hold in WM. Subsequently, they had to search for a target, while the target and distractor were each flanked by a picture of a food or non-food item. Behavioural data showed that a food cue held in WM modulated the deployment of visual attention to a search target more than a non-food cue, even though the cue was irrelevant for target selection. Electrophysiological measures of attention, memory and retention of memory (the P3, LPP and SPCN components) were larger when food was kept in WM, compared to non-food items. No such effect was observed in a priming task, when the initial cue was merely identified. Overall, our electrophysiological data are consistent with the suggestion that food stimuli are particularly strongly represented in the WM system.
我们实验室的研究表明，相对于中性物体，工作记忆（WM）中与食物相关的物体在引导对食物刺激的注意力方面特别有效（希格斯等人，《食欲》，2012年）。在此，我们使用电生理测量来研究工作记忆中食物与非食物项目的神经表征。向受试者呈现一个线索（食物或非食物项目），以引导其注意或保持在工作记忆中。随后，他们必须搜索一个目标，而目标和干扰项两侧分别有一张食物或非食物项目的图片。行为数据表明，即使线索与目标选择无关，工作记忆中保持的食物线索比非食物线索更能调节对搜索目标的视觉注意力部署。与非食物项目相比，当食物保存在工作记忆中时，注意力、记忆和记忆保持（P3、LPP和SPCN成分）的电生理测量值更大。在启动任务中，当仅仅识别初始线索时，未观察到这种效应。总体而言，我们的电生理数据与以下观点一致，即食物刺激在工作记忆系统中得到特别强烈的表征。
