Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Everyday we are faced with the challenge of interacting with different objects in our environment.  The focus of this research proposal stems from the basic idea that we cannot process all the information that is presented to our sensory system at a given time.  As a result, we must select certain information for more detailed processing while ignoring other information.  The mechanism used to select information presented in the visual field is visual attention.  We typically examine visual attention in a controlled laboratory setting.  However, in everyday situations we are faced with the problem of paying attention to objects in our visual field while performing a number of different actions.  As we move about our environment our autonomic nervous system is activated.  For example, when we experience linear acceleration or when we move from a seated position to a standing position there is a resulting activation of the autonomic nervous system.  Recently, in our lab, we have found that autonomic nervous system activation resulted in the attenuation of reflexive orienting attention.  We propose that activation of the autonomic nervous system operates to focus or stabilize attention.  The focus of this research program is to further examine the relationship between the autonomic nervous system and the allocation of attention to object and locations in the visual field.  Activation of the autonomic nervous system provides a window to explore how our visual attention mechanisms might operate in everyday situations.  Determining the interaction between autonomic nervous system activation and attention will provide a more complete understanding of how the different mechanisms in the central nervous system relate to cognitive function.