Schea N Fissel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

I study how attentional resources are dynamically recruited by complex visual stimuli and tasks, and how such attentional resource recruitment varies across neurodiverse populations. Broadly, complexity refers to the multiple interacting features of a system, and dynamics refer to the self-organization of the system over time to communicate meaningful information. For example, we might observe a friend's mouth and eyes move in coordination to communicate "happiness", while a consellation of slightly different facial movements might communicate "fear". Human faces are complex and communicate an immense amount of information that is important for social connection, learning, and survival. Because they are so important, human faces recruit attentional resources in a mandatory fashion, as do other important complex visual stimuli such as point-light displays of biological motion. Because certain complex stimuli automatically recruit attention, the features and ordering of complex visual stimuli can be manipulated within an experimental task to test hypotheses about symptomology in neurodiverse populations. For example, individuals with autism spectrum disorder don't process faces automatically/mandatorially, and so might recruit fewer attentional resources to process facial dynamics.
Autism
Attention
Literacy