In a crowded visual scene, attention must be efficiently and flexibly distributed over time and space to accommodate different contexts. It is well established that selective attention enhances the corresponding neural responses, presumably implying that attention would dwell on multiple visual objects in a sustained manner. In this talk, I will present a series of our studies providing both behavioral and neural evidence supporting that attention is not stationary but dynamically samples multiple visual objects in a rhythmic or serial-like way. Our work advocates a generally central role of temporal organization in visual attentional mechanism such that multiple objects are sequentially sorted in temporal dimension based on their priority in attentional contexts. Taken together, attention implements a space (object)-to-time transformation by acting as a series of concatenating attentional chunks that operate on one object at one time.
Biography
Huan Luo is a PI at the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Peking University. Her lab is interested in exploring temporal dynamics in cognitive behaviors and neuronal activities, by employing and combining various time-resolved approaches (behavioral measurements, MEG, EEG, etc.). Recent topics under investigation include: (1) temporal dynamics in visual/auditory processing, perception, attention, learning and memory; (2) Neuronal oscillation mechanism.
Neuroscience Seminar Series by the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai