Attention and Affect Lab

Our laboratory studies the cognitive and neural mechanisms of attention and emotion processing. We use a multimodal approach including functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, eye-tracking and pupillometry. We further explore brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial alternating-current stimulation to better understand the neural mechanisms that give rise to spontaneous attention lapses. Specifically, we are interested in the development of so-called closed-loop paradigms where brain stimulation protocols are informed by behavioral markers of momentary attentional optimality.

Neural mechanisms of sustained attention: We live in a digital world of everyday media multitasking, where different information constantly competes for our attentional resources. However, when we face situations that are less engaging (e.g. a boring school lesson) sustained attention plays a critical role in staying focussed. In the lab, we study the cognitive and neural mechanisms that keep us on track and those that make our mind wander.

Attention bias in emotion processing: When we listen to a story, what we direct our attention to is substantially defined by our subjective landscape formed by past experiences. What are the mechanisms that drive our attention and make us more or less emotionally engaged than others when we follow a story? Our research aims at describing this “subjective attention bias” using naturalistic paradigms with a temporally evolving narrative, such as movie watching.