How do we perceive the visual world–a world full of different types of sensory stimulation– brightness, color, movement, shapes, etc? How do we selectively attend to certain things while ignoring other things? How does the selective processing of information influence other cognitive functions such as decision and memory?

These are some of the questions that we are investigating in our laboratory. We study the brain mechanisms of perception and attention using a combination of behavioral and neural methods, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and electroencephalography (EEG). Our ultimate goal is to understand how we attend and how attention influences other cognitive functions. Our approach is to relate behavioral performance to brain activity in order to gain insight into the fundamental mechanisms of perception and attention.

The lab is affiliated with the Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience Program in the Department of Psychology, the Neuroscience Program, and the Cognitive Science Program at Michigan State University.

Please feel free to browse these pages of our website to learn more about our work.