Researcher Summary
I have a particular interest in attention capture; how events that are not currently controlling behaviour can usurp control even when that may be counterproductive, and the converse where seemingly conspicuous events appear to be completely ignored even when it may be costly to ignore them. Related are vigilance situations where people are required to monitor their environment for critical target events over prolonged periods. It is well established that probability of detection of critical events declines the longer one performs the task (vigilance decrement). We are currently exploring factors that enhance or ameliorate this decrement, and seek to apply insights from research on attention capture and executive control to the domain of sustained attention and vigilance decrement.