Sarah Shomstein

My research is concerned with understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying attentional selection, and focuses on two questions in particular. The first question concerns the representations, or units, from which selection occurs and this line of research focuses primarily on the behavioral and neural correlates of spatial and object-based selection as human observers analyze incoming information. The second question concerns the computations involved in the selection per se and this research investigates the neural source of the attentional signal and the impact this signal exerts on the neural trace of the sensory stimulus before and after it has been attentionally selected. To explore these issues, I employ multiple methodologies including behavioral paradigms, eye tracking, and functional neuroimaging both in normal individuals as well as in individuals with attentional deficits following brain damage. Utilizing a converging methodologies approach is fundamental to my research program, as the limitations of one method can be compensated for by another..