I will retire from the VU this year (but not from doing science). As a full-circle moment: here is paper on the paradigm with which it all started for me some 35 years ago, in the journal where it all started. A paper on the do’s and don’ts using the additional singleton paradigm. rdcu.be/ffUfa

"Escop visits China” - a message from Jan Theeuwes

Great question and great research field!

JEP: Human Perception and Performance@jephpp.bsky.social · 3mo ago

When the visual system extracts regularities from the environment, what coordinate system does it use? doi.org/10.1037/xhp0... doi.org/10.1037/xhp0... doi.org/10.1037/xhp0... doi.org/10.1037/xhp0... doi.org/10.1037/xhp0...

📣 New in @jephpp.bsky.social: Xu et al. found humans incidentally learn and adapt to temporal patterns of events, enhancing perception and adaptive reactions in real-world scenarios! 📖 Read the full study: psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/...

Check out our new paper out in communications psychology! @commspsychol.nature.com

Communications Psychology@commspsychol.nature.com · 4mo ago

This study shows that past experiences alter the basic processing of visual input, showing that learning alters attentional processing in a similar way to what was previously shown with endogenous and exogenous attention. @docdocdunk.bsky.social @jthee.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Open Research Europe is an open-access journal launched by @erc.europa.eu @ec.europa.eu. This looks *very promising*. open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu #science #europe #ERC

I won an award! At this year's Dutch Psychonomic Society meeting @brain-cognition-nl.bsky.social I was awarded the dissertation prize for the best PhD thesis from the past two years. It was great fun and a huuuge honor!!

I am accepting a Ph.D. student to begin Fall 2026. The position would be part of the Cognition and Neuroscience program at Mizzou. Great opportunities to learn eye tracking and ERPs. Ideal candidates will have some background in attentional capture and visual search. If interested, please email me!

If you are interested in the attentional capture debate... You should read this paper. acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:...

By integrating the 'pinging' technique with fMRI-based multivariate pattern analysis, we provide evidence for a dual-format representation of attention during the preparatory period. doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Last week's symposium titled "Advances in the Encephalographic Study of Attention" was a great success! Held in the KNAW building in Amsterdam and sponsored by the NWO, many of (Europe's) leading attention researchers assembled to discuss the latest advances in attention research using M/EEG.

Thanks to the support of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and @knaw-nl.bsky.social , we're thrilled to announce the international symposium "Advances in the Encephalographic study of Attention"! 🧠🔍 📅 Date: June 25th & 26th 📍 Location: Trippenhuis, Amsterdam

This study challenges the idea that the early PD component is a marker of proactive distractor suppression. Instead, this study suggests that this early positivity reflects general salience processing and/or sensory imbalance rather than specific suppression mechanisms direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...

A Flash in the Pan? Distractor Suppression Cannot Be Inferred from the Early Lateralized Positivity

Abstract. Humans excel at avoiding distraction in visual environments, successfully filtering out repeated salient distractors that could otherwise capture attention. A recent theoretical perspective ...

direct.mit.edu

Through experience, humans can learn to suppress locations that frequently contain distracting stimuli. Using SSVEPs and ERPs, this study shows that such learned suppression modulates early neural responses, indicating it occurs during initial visual processing. www.jneurosci.org/content/jneu...

Attentional Capture and Control | Annual Reviews - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

We used a brain "pinging" again and found that distractor suppression is reactive rather than proactive, meaning attention is first drawn to the distractor before being suppressed.

Neural mechanisms of learned suppression uncovered by probing the hidden attentional priority map

Learned suppression of distractor locations in visual search emerges through reactive mechanisms that involve initial spatial selection prior to suppression.

doi.org

In this ERP study, we examined the Pd in response to color singleton distractors and dynamic motion distractors during visual search (the additional singleton paradigm) direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...

Differential Neural Mechanisms Underlying Inhibition of Color and Dynamic Motion Distractors

Abstract. Navigating visually complex environments requires focusing on relevant information while filtering out (salient) distractions. The signal suppression hypothesis posits that salient stimuli g...

direct.mit.edu