Neural Mechanisms of Attentional Selection [Research Assistant]

Professor: Sarah Shomstein
Department: Psychology
Title: Neural Mechanisms of Attentional Selection
Description: 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. 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.
Duties: Stimulus preparation; assisting with data collection, data analysis, and interpretation.
Time commitment: 7-9 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 3
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: shom@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be met.  Students selected to be research assistants should contact Mary Rothemich at rothemich@gwu.edu whether they intend to pursue credit or not.