Dissecting the neural substrates of spatial attention

Effectively distributing attention in space is critical to human learning and performance. Although it is
recognized that spatial attention is influenced by arousal states, we lack an understanding of the associated
brain mechanisms and dynamics. This project will monitor changes in arousal levels (pupillometry) and
discrete stages of information processing (EEG) at the millisecond level during a spatial attention task.
Establishing the sensitivity of our methods to spontaneous and externally driven fluctuations of arousal will
yield a mechanistic account of the neural substrates of spatial attention with implications for human learning
and performance and diagnosis and treatment of attention disorders.