Humans use memories of the past to figure out where to pay attention and what is most relevant to reach their current goals. For example, when driving to work, an individual can use their memory for specific streets to direct their attention to intersections that they know are tricky or dangerous. This process of “memory-guided attention” helps individuals behave efficiently and accurately even if they are in a rush. Memories, however, can be a double-edged sword. Because many street intersections can look similar to one another, confusing one intersection for another can lead to costly mistakes. This project aims to determine how the brain enables humans to minimize confusion between similar memories to direct their attention accurately and precisely. Understanding how memories are used for rapid decisions about where and how to pay attention has implications for education and artificial intelligence models. For educational settings, the project has potential to inform how students can be taught to avoid confusing similar memories of related problems and concepts, which could help students pay attention in the right way at the right time. More broadly, understanding how the brain solves this problem could inspire new ways that artificial intelligence models can be changed to avoid confusing memories for similar events, and to predict human attention more accurately. In addition to the research, this project includes research training and mentoring for high school, undergradu