Luck Lab
Research
Research
Our laboratory's research focuses on attention and working memory. Most of our experiments use traditional behavioral methods, eye movement recordings, and event-related potential (ERP) recordings, in addition to other techniques.
Attention
The concept of attention has generally been used to describe many different cognitive processes and functions. In general, it describes our ability to selectively process certain aspects of our perceptual experience. Current evidence suggests that we do not have one attentional mechanism, but rather several acting at different stages of processing. Each of these mechanisms may have different roles, and therefore operate differently in each subsystem. One of the current goals of our research is to delineate the different visual attentional mechanisms, their attributes, and roles.
We are currently studying several aspects of visual attention, including:
* How attention affects our perceptual processing
* How attention affects visual working memory encoding
* How perceptual-level attention and working memory-level attention can interact
* The spatial properties of attention
* How we can focus our attention onto objects rather than locations
* Neural Substrates of attention
Visual Working Memory
Visual working memory plays a pivotal role in our daily activities. It is used to store a few bits of information very rapidly so that we can quickly compare the objects in our visual environment. Our research focuses on the structure of visual working memory, the processes that create and maintain visual working memory representations, and the role of visual working memory in visually guided behaviors.
We currently have projects investigating visual working memory, including:
* Interactions between attention and visual working memory
* The units of storage in working memory
* The use of visual working memory to maintain continuity across eye movements
* The development of visual working memory in infancy
* Impairment of visual working memory
* Neural Substrates of visual working memory
Disorders of Mind & Brain
Psychiatric and neurological disorders have a tremendous economic and personal cost, touching almost everyone at some point in time. We are, therefore, engaged in "translational research" to take our basic science findings from healthy individuals and apply them to understanding cognitive disorders in a variety of patient groups. To accomplish this, we have teamed up with the lab of Jim Gold at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center to study schizophrenia and with the lab of Erik St. Louis in the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa to study epilepsy and other neurological conditions.
Specific research topics include:
* Development of an ERP-based test battery for psychiatric and neurological patients
* Assessing impairments of top-down attentional control in patients with schizophrenia
* Assessing impairments of visual working memory in patients with schizophrenia
* Assessing visual attention, response selection, and error detection in epilepsy, Huntington's disease, and hepatic encephalopathy
Development and Communication of Cognitive Neuroscience Methods
Great research in cognitive neuroscience arises from combining interesting questions about the mind and brain with state-of-the-art methods for measuring the mind and brain. Consequently, an important part of our laboratory's mission is to further the development of cognitive neuroscience methods and helping others to see how these methods can be used in their own research.
Specific methodological activities include:
* Hosting a yearly 10-day summer training workshop in ERPs (the UC-Davis ERP Boot Camp)
* Holding 2-day mini ERP Boot Camps at conferences and at other institutions
* Developing innovations in experimental design and data analysis
* Authoring and editing books on ERP methods