Current Research

• Understanding the mechanisms underlying visual spatial attention. This research uses a combination of ERPs and event-related fMRI to study the brain activity and mechanisms underlying the executive control of the orienting of visual attention and how such attention modulates sensory and perceptual processing in the brain.
• Understanding the mechanisms of auditory attention. In parallel to the visual attention studies, this research uses ERPs and event-related fMRI to investigate the executive control of the orienting of auditory attention and how attention modulates auditory sensory and perceptual processing in the brain.
• Understanding the mechanisms of the intermodal switching of attention between the visual and auditory modalities, as well as the more general issue of the switching of attention between different task sets.
• Understanding the mechanisms of how we integrate auditory and visual information from a multi-sensory object, how attention influences such integration processes, and how attention can spread across the various components of a multisensory object.
• Study of the brain mechanisms underlying several multisensory (auditory-visual) perceptual illusions.
• Study of the mechanisms and timing characteristics of how we move visual spatial attention across the visual field.
• Study of how the brain employs attentional mechanisms to stay focused on task-relevant stimuli and to filter out interference or conflict from distracting aspects of concurrent sensory input.
• Study of response inhibition and control processes using a combination of behavioral measures, ERPs, and event-related fMRI. A principal aim of this research is understanding the dysfunction of such processes in Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
• Study of the physiological basis of the hemodynamic imaging signals. This is a collaboration with Dr. Allen Song and colleagues at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center.
• Continuing development of fast-rate event-related fMRI methodology, as well as the continuing development of approaches to optimally combine fMRI and electrophysiological measures of brain activity to study mechanisms of cognitive processes.
• Application of ERPs to study of the development of numerical cognition and timing perception in babies. This is a collaborative project with Dr. Elizabeth Brannon and her laboratory at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.
• Study of the brain mechanisms underlying several multisensory (auditory-visual) perceptual illusions.