Capturing attention with distracting information: the role of context

In order to produce adapted behavior, we are constantly led to process the important information in our environment, which is relevant to current goals, while neglecting less important, distracting information. However, some irrelevant stimuli can interfere strongly with our behavior, increasing reaction times and errors. A failure in the mechanism of inhibiting irrelevant distractors is called “attentional capture”.
As some of our team’s work shows, the visual and motor context of the task used in the laboratory to study these attentional capture mechanisms plays a central, and little-known role in the genesis of attentional capture effects. This internship is a continuation of this work, and aims to complete the samples of several experimental groups (at the Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone in Marseille). Comparing attentional capture effects obtained on different versions of visual search and conflict tasks will enable us to identify factors that are likely to influence the known attentional capture effects of distracting information. This work could be the subject of a scientific publication.

First Year Master Internship in Neurosciences, Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie...