What makes memories guide attention?

Humans use their memories to guide attention, such as when using the looks of a friend when searching for them in a crowded square. This is called memory-guided attention. There is an ongoing debate in the memory-guided attention literature. Some studies claim that memories that are focused in our mind guide attention better. Other studies argue that the precision/quality of memories determines their attention-guiding abilities. What makes solving this puzzle challenging is that internal focus improves memory quality, making it difficult to disentangle the two claims. We aim to dissociate these two theories by controlling each factor individually in behavioral experiments.

- Students are expected to spend at least 6 hours/week. Approximately 4 hours will be spent on data collection, 30 minutes on the weekly project meeting, and 1.5 hours on reading and data analysis.

- Interested students are encouraged to reach out to Eren Günseli to describe what motivates them to participate in this project and their current level of research experience.

- For more information on our research, check out our website at gunselilab.com