Research

Perceptually salient distractors - that is, objects that stand out from their surroundings - can sometimes capture our  attention.  But how else might they change our behavior?  In a recent study (Moher, 2020), we asked people to find simple targets in crowded images, similar to how you might look for your keys on a messy desk or your friends in a crowd. We discovered that when  distractors appear in these scenes, people are more likely to miss seeing a target entirely, instead deciding that it must not be there and moving on to their next search.  In other words, they gave up more easily because they were initially distracted. This has important implications not only for understanding how attention works, but also for real-world search tasks such as airport baggage screening or radiology, where observers search for targets that may or may not be present.  We were recently awarded a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation for a series of follow-up studies, including using eyetracking techniques to better understand how distractions disrupt searches.

Historically, attention has been studied in isolation from movement.  Most techniques ask participants view visual images but not to interact with those images at all, instead responding indirectly by pressing a key on a keyboard.  However, incorporating movement into the study of attention can uncover new insights into human behavior.  In our lab, we have a number of projects that explore topics in this area, such as how slight changes in hand movements can let us know whether someone has lost focus, or how making movements more or less demanding can change how well we can focus on a difficult task.  Some of these projects are currently funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Salient distractors often disrupt behavior - but what happens when we can prepare for them ahead of time?  In our lab, we explore how the impact of distractions can be minimized when we can anticipate those distractions will appear.  This includes studies that use explicit cues to warn observers that distractors are coming, or providing contextual cues such as background images that indicate that a distractor is more or less likely to appear for an upcoming task.  In general, distractions are hard to ignore even when we explicitly try, but there are some situations in which we can minimize the impact of these salient distractors.