Sly Saint
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Department: School of Psychology and Vision Sciences
Application deadline: 31 July 2023
Start date: 1 October 2023
Overview
Supervisors: Dr Doug Barrett (djkb1@le.ac.uk) & Dr David Souto (ds572@le.ac.uk)
Project Description:
Cognitive deficits are a pervasive and debilitating characteristic of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFE) [1]. Deficits in selective attention are considered a core symptom, with sufferers reporting visual overload, difficulties filtering relevant from irrelevant visual information, and fatigue during visual search [2,3]. Attentional and visual search deficits have also been empirically demonstrated [4]. Despite the prevalence of these symptoms, the exact nature of attentional deficits in ME/CFS remains unclear. This may reflect heterogeneity in the severity of attentional deficits, or a lack of sensitivity in standardised neuropsychological assessments to attentional control mechanisms involved in everyday visual tasks. Differentiating between these possibilities is important, because specifying the way ME/CFS impacts sensory and cognitive processes is fundamental to understanding the neurological bases of sufferers’ symptoms [5]. This studentship will focus on the visual search paradigm to investigate the contribution of bottom-up sensory and top-down, attentional processes [6] to symptoms reported by sufferers on a task that is central to functional vision. The project will use laboratory-based and online computer-based tasks to contrast behavioural and physiological (eye movements and EEG) measures of selective attention during search in individuals with, and without ME/CFE.
Objectives
1. To compare sensory thresholds in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls for targets differentiated from distractors by variation on a range of visual features (e.g., luminance)
2. To compare behavioural, eye movement, and electrophysiological markers of top-down attention in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls during visual search.
3. To develop an online test that is sensitive to specific markers of visual perception and attention in ME/CFS based on evidence from the laboratory-based tasks above.
https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/pvs-barrett
Application deadline: 31 July 2023
Start date: 1 October 2023
Overview
Supervisors: Dr Doug Barrett (djkb1@le.ac.uk) & Dr David Souto (ds572@le.ac.uk)
Project Description:
Cognitive deficits are a pervasive and debilitating characteristic of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFE) [1]. Deficits in selective attention are considered a core symptom, with sufferers reporting visual overload, difficulties filtering relevant from irrelevant visual information, and fatigue during visual search [2,3]. Attentional and visual search deficits have also been empirically demonstrated [4]. Despite the prevalence of these symptoms, the exact nature of attentional deficits in ME/CFS remains unclear. This may reflect heterogeneity in the severity of attentional deficits, or a lack of sensitivity in standardised neuropsychological assessments to attentional control mechanisms involved in everyday visual tasks. Differentiating between these possibilities is important, because specifying the way ME/CFS impacts sensory and cognitive processes is fundamental to understanding the neurological bases of sufferers’ symptoms [5]. This studentship will focus on the visual search paradigm to investigate the contribution of bottom-up sensory and top-down, attentional processes [6] to symptoms reported by sufferers on a task that is central to functional vision. The project will use laboratory-based and online computer-based tasks to contrast behavioural and physiological (eye movements and EEG) measures of selective attention during search in individuals with, and without ME/CFE.
Objectives
1. To compare sensory thresholds in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls for targets differentiated from distractors by variation on a range of visual features (e.g., luminance)
2. To compare behavioural, eye movement, and electrophysiological markers of top-down attention in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls during visual search.
3. To develop an online test that is sensitive to specific markers of visual perception and attention in ME/CFS based on evidence from the laboratory-based tasks above.
https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/pvs-barrett
