Professor of Cognitive Psychology. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Jan Theeuwes
By using a visual pinging technique, we uncovered a latent sensory-like format of attentional templates that remains hidden during passive preparation.
In @elife.bsky.social: Dual-format attentional template during preparation in human visual cortex doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
ESCoP 2026 will be held in Hangzhou (31 Aug–4 Sept). Great keynote speakers, strong programme, and a chance to experience China. Easy travel via Shanghai + high-speed train. Abstracts still open!
www.escop-copm-2026.com
Our newest finding: tiny microsaccades are biased toward the location that is about to be attentionally suppressed.
This suggests that attention briefly precedes suppression: before the system can suppress a location, it first appears to select it.
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...
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
If you are interested in the attentional capture debate... You should read this paper.
acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:...
Using intracranial recordings from 22 people, we show that hippocampal theta activity enables earlier decoding of the upcoming target, supporting automatic performance. This is specific to the hippocampus, with later involvement of ripple bursts.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Apologies - the project is also in collaboration with Jan Theeuwes (VU Amsterdam) @jthee.bsky.social! I curse the lack of an edit button in Bluesky.
🧠 Excited to share that our new preprint is out!🧠
In this work, we investigate the dynamic competition between bottom-up saliency and top-down goals in the early visual cortex using rapid invisible frequency tagging (RIFT).
📄 Check it out on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
