Visual-attention:

My research on visual attention, much like my auditory interests, has focused on the question of what attention selects. One line of research has explored object-based attention, both the inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms (e.g., List & Robertson, 2007). In these studies, we have explored some of the limits of object-based attentional selection (e.g., temporal limits, structural limits: holes). In another line of investigation, I have used patient-based methods. These studies have typically focused on individuals with hemi-spatial neglect (who show an inability to attend or orient to contralesional space). In a broad research effort from the Robertson Lab, we explored the relationship between standard neuropsychological assessments and psychophysical thresholds in search tasks (List et al., 2008). The lab-wide project additionally probes deficits between space- and object-based attention, landmark judgments and extinction thresholds, and these data will eventually contribute to both a large- scale recovery study and a voxel-based lesion symptom mapping analysis. Together, these projects illuminate the various visual dimensions and attributes that attention selects, or fails to select with brain injury, revealing critical information processing stages in effective perception.