Title
Tracking internal attention through the eyes: what we have learned so far
Selective attention can be directed not only to external sensations, but also to internal representations held within the spatial lay-out of working memory. We have recently uncovered how such internally directed selective attention is associated with directional biases in small eye movements known as microsaccades – extending the role of the oculomotor system to internal orienting of visual attention. In my talk, I will highlight this finding and show how we have started to utilise directional biases in microsaccades as a novel approach for tracking internal attention along three dimensions: to track (1) whether internal attention is deployed, (2) when it is deployed, and (3) where it is deployed. Doing so, I will illustrate how the study of microsaccades can be used to uncover new insights into the principles and mechanisms of internally directed selective visual attention in dynamic and immersive settings. I will finally address how such directional biases in microsaccade relate to neural modulation by covert spatial attention, arguing for a functional but not obligatory link between ocular and neural signatures of covert spatial attention.
Biography
Freek obtained his PhD in 2014 from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (Radboud University Nijmegen) where he worked with Eric Maris, Ole Jensen, and Floris de Lange. He then received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and a Newton International Fellowship and spent five years as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity (University of Oxford) in the Brain & Cognition Lab of Kia Nobre. In 2020, Freek was awarded an ERC Starting Grant to found the Proactive Brain Lab at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Freek has received several awards and recognitions, including the 2020 ESCoP Early Career Publication Award (European Society for Cognitive Psychology), the 2021 APS Rising Star Award (Association for Psychological Science), and the 2022 NVP Early Career Award (Dutch Society for Brain & Cognition). Freek currently serves on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Progress in Neurobiology, and Visual Cognition. He is co-chair of the Amsterdam Graduate Network for Cognitive Neuroscience, and teaches the research-master course on Cognitive Electrophysiology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.