Training for Attentional Control

Ability to pay attention to important info, to ignore irrelevant info, and to juggle multiple talks simultaneously are all attentional control tasks important for learning and everyday activities.  We are evaluating whether different types of training (computer-based tasks requiring such skills) can improve college students (including those with Attention Deficit Disorder) attentional control skills in a way that can transfer to new situations.  Participants come into lab and perform a variety of attentional tasks designed to provide practice on these skills.  We measure how much participants improve on tasks and other related tasks.  Other participants perform control tasks, and we compare between groups.  

 

Student Tasks and Responsibilities: Students will be involved in planning studies with a research group, collecting data by testing human participants, participate in a reading group discussing relevant research articles, and writing a final paper based on the results of the study they chose to participate in.  Students will work closely with other students and the faculty sponsor, and will meet at least once every two weeks with the faculty sponsor to discuss progress and to talk about journal articles that they have read.  There will also be a regular research meeting on the alternate week. Finally, participants on the second project (Displaying complex information effectively) may choose to become involved in creating a computational model of graph comprehension.