🧠 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/...
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
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.
If you are interested in the attentional capture debate... You should read this paper.
acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:...
Jan Theeuwes
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
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.
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...
We're hiring! Looking for a postdoc to work at UNSW Sydney, studying impacts of reward and information on attention, using eye-tracking, EEG, and modelling - with Kelly Garner, Daniel Pearson and me. Application link below, please spread the word!
external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/53...
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/...
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...
Task-irrelevant yet salient stimuli can elicit automatic, bottom-up attentional capture and compete with top-down, goal-directed processes for neural representation. However, the temporal dynamics und...
Statistical learning guide attention by shaping anticipatory oculomotor behavior. Here, the authors show that microsaccades are biased to expected distractor locations before stimulus onset and predic...
