The seminar is sponsored by NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai.
Abstract:
Attention allows us to select relevant sensory information for preferential processing. I will discuss effects of attention on early visual processes. I will present psychophysical and fMRI studies regarding the effects of endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary) covert attention –the selective processing of visual information without eye movements– on the perception of basic visual dimensions. Specifically, I will showing how contrast sensitivity increases at the attended location (or for the attended features) at the expense of reduced sensitivity at unattended locations (or for the unattended features), and discuss these results in reference to a normalization model of attention.
Biography:
I received my doctorate from Princeton University in 1989 My dissertation dealt with the relationship between spatial resolution and temporal sensitivity properties of the human visual system. Before coming to NYU, I was an assistant professor at Wesleyan University, CT. My research aims to understand the relationship between the psychological and physiological mechanisms involved in the basic processes of visual perception andattention. The theoretical framework for my research draws from work in perception, cognitive psychology, and neurophysiology. Themethodology is based on visual psychophysics. My current research has two goals: First, to develop a model of visual search that takes into account known sensory factors, such as spatial resolution and lateral inhibition, and attentional mechanisms thought to facilitate the processing of relevant information by enhancing its perceptual representation and/or improving decisional mechanisms. Second, to characterize the attentional mechanisms that affect early visual processing.