The Cognitive Science Lab, one of many research labs on campus, was founded in the summer of 2006 by Dr. Jeff Pelletier and Dr. Mark Blair. Reflecting the field in general, the lab is a highly multi-disciplinary environment. Lab members include both graduates and undergraduate students from Cognitive Science,Linguistics, Philosophy, Computer Science, Psychology and Kinesiology. The research group led by Mark Blair addresses questions that have particular relevance to cognitive psychology, particularly theories of categorization and concept formation. Using a grant provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada the lab became equipped with an eye-tracker that has enabled the lab to ask new and unique questions.
Using an eye-tracker gives a unique perspective into how cognitive capacities are deployed to solve a number of different tasks. For instance, by looking at a person's gaze fixations during a categorization task it is possible to infer what features of the stimulus that person did or did not access. One interesting question that the eye-tracker has enabled the lab to address is whether people are good at optimizing their attention to ignore irrelevant information. By looking at the distribution of fixation patterns it is possible to get a view into the subtle ways in which people dynamically alter their attention tofilter out those features of a stimulus that don't assist their categorization.
Learn more about eye-tracking research in Anatomy of an Eye-tracking Experiment.
One application of the research being conducted in the lab is to the world of medical diagnosis. When a doctor is faced with the important task of classifying a patient's illness, the doctor must focus his attention on the symptoms that are most likely to reveal the correct cause of what he is observing.However, what happens when the filter goes awry? Are people in general, like doctors, able to get back on track and focus on the right information? The consequences of mistakes are large in that a patient could go untreated and develop a more serious illness.
Our current research has been looking at the ways in which people learn to optimize their attention and filter out irrelevant information. Part of our research is looking at the ways in which attention can be misapplied. Once we know more it will be possible to suggest strategies to avoid misplaced attentional allocation. New projects are constantly being undertaken and anyone interested in the work being done can visit the lab webpage at cslab.psyc.sfu.ca.