More fun photos from the Show-Me Mental State conference.

Great success at the Show-Me Mental State conference! So many great talks on attention, working memory, cognitive control, long-term memory, linguistics, and more. Special thanks to Ed Awh for the wonderful keynote! My first shot at conference organizing.

I am excited to announce that Steeven Chaloyard has won a Fulbright Scholarship to study in my lab next year. He recently obtained his PhD at the University of Rouen in Normandy, France where he studied with Dr. François Maquestiaux. Look out for some cool forthcoming work from us soon!

A cool additive color mixing demonstration inherited from Mizzou from the 1940s/50s. Manufactured by General Electric! It consists of 3 light bulbs (R,G,B) and control knobs to adjust the intensity of each bulb. This allows you to produce any possible color combination on an opaque filter.

Thanks to everyone who applied to our NSF-funded "R Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience" virtual summer workshop. This year, we had over 150 applications from outstanding applicants around the world! We truly appreciate the investment and it is humbling to see so many great applicants.

A cool Müller-Lyer illusion inherited from Nelson Cowan! You can adjust the length of the line via a slide rule and the back has a ruler to measure how far the estimate of equal length was from reality. More cool perception gadgets that I inherited to come!

Collin Scarince and I have a new paper out in QJEP. This is an impressive feat by Collin to modify the Guided Search model with a multidimensional scaling "plug in" that helps extend computational capacity to capture performance with featurally complex stimuli. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The ADAM lab is hiring a Research Specialist to join us! This role involves conducting human subjects research (EEG experiments on attention + working memory) and assisting with the execution and administration of ongoing projects. Job posting: emdz.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Congrats to the honors students and McNair scholars from our lab! Nice work presenting your final projects and enjoy graduation!

Last chance to apply for our virtual summer workshop on R Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience. Funded by NSF, this FREE workshop provides direct training in using R to analyze data from psychological experiments. Open to students from any university. Apps due May 15! rworkshop.missouri.edu

Such a wonderful talk from Keisuke Fukuda. Really cool work on working memory and metacognition! Thanks so much visiting us at Mizzou! @keisukefukuda.bsky.social

A very interesting paper introducing a new technique to manipulate salience during search!

Just a few more days left to apply! Come join our lab!🥳

Excited to see this work out! We show that attention can rapidly learn to ignore salient distractions within 1-2 exposures. Interestingly, this learned suppression is highly contingent on an initial instance of capture! More to come! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @yuezhang-mu.bsky.social

Hi Colleagues who use eyetracking! 👋 👀 @shen4brains.bsky.social , @jordwynn.bsky.social, Zhong Xu Liu and I are guest editing a Special Issue for Neuropsychologia on Contributions of eyetracking to cognitive neuroscience.

The Graduate Student and Postdoc Committee is looking to fill three vacancies on the committee this year. Applications are due by April 1. Learn more and express your interest here: buff.ly/0rZ3Udb

Want to learn R? 📊 Join our NSF-funded "R Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience Workshop"! This virtual workshop is completely free and teaches junior scientists the basics of coding for data analysis. Apply by May 15th! rworkshop.missouri.edu #RStats #Psychology #Neuroscience

Does salience boost object representations in working memory, or is it just a visual search artifact? In two new studies w/ Nelson Cowan, we challenge some recent studies for a more flexible model of working memory. Read about it on my blog! gaspelinblog.wordpress.com/2026/03/11/f...

Honored to be an APS fellow! Thanks to those who nominated me. And congrats to the others who were also inducted. www.psychologicalscience.org/members/fell...

❗New paper published in Cognition❗ "A common signal-strength factor limits awareness and precise knowledge of multiple moving objects across the adult lifespan" from Iris Wiegand, Igor S. Utochkin, Ava Mitra, Chia-Chien Wu, and Jeremy M. Wolfe authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Elaine (my daughter) is officially the mascot for our Linux-based stimulus machines in the lab. All coding frustrations can now be addressed by viewing this picture. >> sudo get-cuteness

Here's a new paper in which we analyzed >700,000 eye movements to understand attentional suppression of distracting stimuli. This large dataset helps resolve some longstanding questions about the timing and learning of suppression. @kaitlyndrennan.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

new paper in TICS officially out today. great learning from and writing with Anastasia, and super cool cover art from Prof. Pinar Yoldas. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

What can we learn from >700,000 eye movements about distractor suppression? Tonight, Kaitlyn Drennan will present a large data set that aims to resolve difficult-to-answer questions about distractor suppression. Stop by her poster to see beautiful data! ​

Are working memory representations feature-based or object-based? This afternoon, Chenye Bao will present some awesome ERP work using the CDA component to test between these accounts. She finds an interesting discrepancy between behavior and ERPs. Don't miss her talk! @chenyebao.bsky.social

How do we learn to ignore salient distractors? This morning, Yue Zhang will be present fascinating work suggesting successful ignoring actually requires an initial instance of capture. This learning can occur rapidly within 1-2 trials! Don't miss her talk. @yuezhang-mu.bsky.social ​

Great keynote by Joy Geng at OPAM! Super cool research and great early career advice. Very inspiring and motivational to see!

Does the breadth of attentional focus determine whether salient stimuli capture attention? Theeuwes has suggested prior evidence of signal suppression can be explained by parallel search. Xiaojin Ma put this to the test. Stop by her poster to learn more! @xiaojinma.bsky.social

The human-neuroscience N2pc marker of covert and internal attention co-occurs with spatial biases in microsaccades, 200-300 ms after prompted to shift attention. (How) are these empirical phenomena related? Check it out in the latest work led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Upcoming presentations at Psychonomics. We have many super-cool projects on attention and working memory that you don't want to miss! See you in Denver! @psychonomicsociety.bsky.social @xiaojinma.bsky.social @chenyebao.bsky.social @yuezhang-mu.bsky.social @kaitlyndrennan.bsky.social

#sensoryprocessingsensitivity #neuroskyence

Any early-career researchers in #workingmemory wanting to contribute to an #openscience initiative? I'm looking for help building up a data hub resource for the field. Volunteers can expect to devote a few hours, and might pick up insights into handling research data and how to use Github.

Job announcement! UN Reno Psychology (Cognitive & Brain Sciences division) is hiring for a tenure-track position. Come join us! We have a great group! Deadline December 1. Please share! nshe.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UNR-external... #neuroskyence #neuroscience

I am accepting a Ph.D. student to begin Fall 2026. The position would be part of the Cognition and Neuroscience program at Mizzou. Great opportunities to learn eye tracking and ERPs. Ideal candidates will have some background in attentional capture and visual search. If interested, please email me!

We found attentional suppression might be related to re-coding salient singleton locations in a inverted format to target locations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We published a review paper updating the Signal Suppression Account to version 2.0. We explain challenges to the original theory and how it has been updated in response. This refined theory makes new predictions about learned suppression that need testing. gaspelinblog.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/t...

1/ Why are we so easily distracted? 🧠 In our new EEG preprint w/ Henry Jones, @monicarosenb.bsky.social and @edvogel.bsky.social we show that distractibility is associated w/ reduced neural connectivity — and can be predicted from EEG with ~80% accuracy using machine learning.

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 are looking for our next colleague. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions!

New paper from my lab testing how the breadth of attentional focus influences visual distraction by salient stimuli. Across six experiments, we find no ERP or behavioral evidence in support of the attentional window account. Read about it on my blog: gaspelinblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/t...

Vision peeps... Gah! What's the citation demonstrating people's ability to track objects defined purely by common motion, as in this demo? I've been racking my brain for days. Thanks!

Our new paper using transformers to understanding scene semantics has finally dropped in Open Mind. Fully open access. #cognition #percepton (If you follow me for music you can ignore this one.) direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Excited this review paper is out! We update the signal suppression account to explain recent findings related to attention capture by salient stimuli. We also propose new mechanisms of learned attentional control. Written with Steve Luck and @xiaojinma.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.3...

A great tutorial by Xiaojin Ma on how to use PsychoPy for programming a cognitive task.

That's a wrap! The "R Workshop for Psychology and Neuroscience" is officially done. Two weeks coding and fun with amazing junior researchers. If you missed it, you can find the course materials (including videos) on our website. Thanks NSF for funding! See you next year... rworkshop.missouri.edu

Ever notice how a ticking clock or flashing banner stops bothering you? In our new @nature.com Scientific Reports paper, we focus on the stages involved in habituation to visual distractors, using #EEG ERP and oscillations. rdcu.be/euAIE @snsf.ch @unifr.bsky.social @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social

Big congrats!

Celebratory dinner with the Luck and Gaspelin labs at VSS.

So proud to see all of my students past and present at their VSS posters.

Come see our VSS presentations!