“I want to know how we create awareness of the world around us. What do you pick up, and what don't you pick up? Attention plays a major role in this.”
Stefan van der Stigchel is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Utrecht University and principal researcher of the research group AttentionLab.
Studying attention and visual perception
The goal of AttentionLab is to study our perception and attention in the broadest sense. To this end, the AttentionLab uses various methods, such as eye movement registration, brain measurements, and psychophysics. For example, we study attention in different patient populations, such as hemianopsia (half-sided blindness), visual neglect and in patients with memory problems. Ultimately, we want to understand how we create a perception of our world. AttentionLab's research is partly supported by a VICI grant awarded by NWO and a Consolidator Grant from ERC.
Popular scientific books
Van der Stigchel is author of the popular scientific book How Attention Works which was published in English in January 2019. His second book Concentration was published in in 2020 also at MIT Press. His third book is Grip op je aandacht (Grip on your attention) appeared in 2020 (Dutch only).
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