Attention

HiPerCog lab studies, and aims to develop a theory of, High Performance Cognition (HPC), which arises when a highly demanding dynamic cognitive task is performed with high skill. HPC is hypothesized to be due to tuning of attention processes. It generates subjective experience of Flow, and is a component of learning to perform to expert/optimal level. A key tenet of HPC is that it arises through learning of a demanding dynamic task. We work on projects studying skill learning in a range of tasks, including games, programming, and neurofeedback.

My laboratory is primarily interested in recording and manipulating neural circuits involved in organisms’ ability to adapt to an unpredictable environment. We focus on interactions between cognitive circuits (anterior cingulate cortex, ACC) and action selection and control circuits (motor cortex, basal ganglia), which occur in the context of neuromodulation by the noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC).