Welcome to the Attention and Cognition Lab at GWU, led by Dr. Sarah Shomstein.

One of the fundamental properties of our environment is that it is comprised of a multitude of sensory information. Given such richness of input, humans are faced with the problem of having limited capacity for processing information, on the one hand, and the need to analyze as much of the sensory input as possible, on the other. 

Here, at the Attention and Cognition Laboratory, research is concerned with understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying attentional selection, and focuses on two general questions. The first question concerns the representations, or units, on which selection is based and this line of research focuses primarily on the behavioral. The second question concerns the computations involved in the selection per se and this research investigates the neural network responsible for generating the attentional control signal and the impact this signal exerts on the neural trace of the sensory stimulus before and after it has been attentionally selected.



                                            
            Fall 2018 Left to right. Standing:  Charity Chukwu, Laslo Cline, Dick Dubbelde, Sarah Shomstein, Selene Schintu, Lexington Lemmon, AJ Collegio. Sitting: Ellie Robbins, Joe Nah, and George Washington. (photo credit: Joe Nah)