Attentional Dynamics During Navigation: Strategies, Individual Differences, and Neural Mechanisms

This project will investigate the dynamic interplay between attention and navigation processes using immersive virtual reality (VR), mobile brain imaging methods, eye-tracking, and state-of-the art machine learning methods.

Three main objectives:

1. To examine the dynamics of attentional processes during navigation with different strategies and goals.
2. To characterize the dynamics of attention in isolation and during VR navigation using machine learning models informed by EEG and eye-tracking data.
3. To relate individual differences in spatial cognition and performance to attentional processes during navigation in VR.

The project will address two fundamental gaps in knowledge and, in so doing, we will offer a new understanding of the interplay between navigational processes and the human attention system at the behavioral and neural level that will constrain current theories of both navigation and attention. The first knowledge gap we will address is how navigation goals impact different attentional processes (orienting, encoding, goal maintenance) and the underlying neural signatures of these processes. The second knowledge gap we will address is how differences in attention to environmental features mediate differences in navigational strategies, either those that are task induced or those that are due to individual differences. This fundamental knowledge will also inform translational science aimed at performance monitoring, prediction, training, and augmentation.