We’re delighted to welcome Emma Smedley to the Motorbias Project. Emma is currently studying for a BSc in Psychology here in Durham and will be working with Soazig and Dan to examine how motor preparation interacts with other cognitive processes such as working memory to guide attention. The aim is to better understand how attention is allocated when the oculomotor system and memory-guided attention systems are activated simultaneously. Several possible outcomes can be sketched out. Firstly, it may be that the motor system dominates, in which case attention should be allocated to the saccade goal and not the item in VWM. Alternatively, memory-guided attention could dominate, in which case attention should be allocated to the object that shares a feature with the memory item. A 3rd possibility is that the systems interact, in which case we should observe an additive effect when the content of VWM and saccade goal are congruent and a subtractive effect when they are incongruent. This research project is supported by an EPS Small Grant to Soazig & Dan.
delighted to welcome Dr Alexis Cheviet to the team! Alexis joins us from INSERM in Lyon where he worked on oculomotor function in people with brain injuries with Prof Denis Pelisson, and will lead on the Dunhill Medical Trust project examining