Neural Underpinnings of Attention in the Real World: 

Co-Registration of Eye Movements and EEG

Submissions closed June 15, 2023

Guest Editors
Elizabeth Schotter University of South Florida, USA
David Melcher, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE
Brennan Payne, University of Utah, USA 

Overview
Visual attention is critical for many real-world cognitive tasks that have important consequences for our daily lives (e.g., reading, visual search, scene perception). Eye movements play a critical role in such active visual attention tasks, but historically, cognitive neuroscience methods (e.g., electroencephalography; EEG) have required research participants to refrain from moving their eyes to reduce artifacts and confounds in neural measurements. However, restricting eye movements limits our inferential capabilities, especially with respect to understanding the real-world implications that motivate the research in the first place.

Recent technological innovations are helping to alleviate this problem. One major innovation is the ability to co-register brain activity (e.g., EEG) to eye movement behavior (via eye tracking) as people freely move their eyes. Such technical innovation allows for the simultaneous study of behavioral and neural measures of visual and cognitive processes in naturalistic free-viewing scenarios, moving beyond the constraints of traditional laboratory paradigms. However, there are both technical and conceptual challenges underlying the use of these methods. Moreover, because much of the prior eye movement and electrophysiological research on visual attention has been developed in largely independent research areas – each with their own theories, foci, and best practices – there remains a major challenge in integrating these long-siloed domains.

The goal of this special issue is to feature the latest empirical, theoretical, and methodological work on eye-movement and EEG co-registration in cognitive science. We particularly invite contributions that take a naturalistic approach to active vision and/or aim to bridge the “attention” gap across multiple research areas (e.g., studying commonalities and differences in visual attention across reading and scene perception). Contributions may include:

1. Original empirical research using co-registration methods
2. Original empirical research using a single methodology but that has direct implications for (or challenges to) co-registration research
3. Opinionated review of research with implications for co-registration research
4. Methodological or “best practices” contributions for conducting and reporting co-registration research 

Submit a Manuscript
The submission deadline was June 15, 2023. The target publication date is December 2023. All submissions will undergo a normal, full peer review, maintaining the same high editorial standards for regular submissions to Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. We invite those interested in a possible submission to contact the guest editors.   

Questions?
Please contact the Guest Editors.