Attention selects what reaches our awareness. When our attention wanders, we can miss seeing something even when we are staring right at it, whether it is an approaching car, an edge of a ramp, or child playing in the street. Attention plays a critical role in organizing our mental processes and disorders of attention frequently accompany the major mental diseases. In this proposal we focus on three aspects of the early stages of visual attention. First, we use attentional tracking tasks to examine the properties of the selection map that indexes the attended spatial locations. Second, we study the spatial properties of the uptake of information from a single selection location, using spatial crowding tasks. Finally using a new technique with moving targets we isolate non-retinotopic postselection analyses. Attention is the final arbiter of what ^experience and the guide to our learning about the events around us. The more we learn about attention, the better we will be equipped to enhance mental function, improve learning strategies, construct optimal displays of information, deal with failures of attention, and better rehabilitate those with neurological impairments of attention.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EY009258-17
Application #
7539898
Study Section
Central Visual Processing Study Section (CVP)
Program Officer
Steinmetz, Michael A
Project Start
1991-08-01
Project End
2011-11-30
Budget Start
2008-12-01
Budget End
2009-11-30
Support Year
17
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$334,833
Indirect Cost
Name
Harvard University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
082359691
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02138
Wu, Daw-An; Cavanagh, Patrick (2016) Where are you looking? Pseudogaze in afterimages. J Vis 16:6
Störmer, Viola S; Alvarez, George A; Cavanagh, Patrick (2014) Within-hemifield competition in early visual areas limits the ability to track multiple objects with attention. J Neurosci 34:11526-33
Macdonald, James S P; Cavanagh, Patrick; VanRullen, Rufin (2014) Attentional sampling of multiple wagon wheels. Atten Percept Psychophys 76:64-72
Cavanagh, Patrick; Anstis, Stuart (2013) The flash grab effect. Vision Res 91:8-20
Franconeri, Steven L; Alvarez, George A; Cavanagh, Patrick (2013) Flexible cognitive resources: competitive content maps for attention and memory. Trends Cogn Sci 17:134-41
Kosovicheva, Anna A; Maus, Gerrit W; Anstis, Stuart et al. (2012) The motion-induced shift in the perceived location of a grating also shifts its aftereffect. J Vis 12:
Cohen, Michael A; Cavanagh, Patrick; Chun, Marvin M et al. (2012) The attentional requirements of consciousness. Trends Cogn Sci 16:411-7
Cavanagh, Patrick (2011) Visual cognition. Vision Res 51:1538-51
Hunt, Amelia R; Cavanagh, Patrick (2011) Remapped visual masking. J Vis 11:13
Holcombe, Alex O; Linares, Daniel; Vaziri-Pashkam, Maryam (2011) Perceiving spatial relations via attentional tracking and shifting. Curr Biol 21:1135-9

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