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Dynam­ics of Attention

Human envi­ron­ments are rich in sen­so­ry sig­nals from rel­e­vant sources (i.e., tar­gets) and irrel­e­vant sources (i.e., dis­trac­tors). To achieve goals, the human mind has to focus atten­tion on tar­gets and sup­press dis­trac­tion. The over­ar­ch­ing research goal of the “Dynam­ics of Atten­tion” group is to uncov­er the intri­cate inter­play of neu­ro-cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms involved in tar­get enhance­ment and dis­trac­tor sup­pres­sion and their explana­to­ry poten­tial for human goal-ori­ent­ed behav­iour. Our research com­bines the areas psy­chol­o­gy, neu­ro­science, and audiology.

 

Group leader

PD Dr. rer. nat. Malte Wöstmann
Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck
malte.woestmann@uni-luebeck.de
+49 451 3101 3621

2021 — Habil­i­ta­tion, Psy­chol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck

2015 — PhD, Psy­chol­o­gy, Leipzig University

2012 — M.Sc. Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence, Osnabrück University

2010 — B.Sc. Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence, Osnabrück University

 

Mem­bers

  • Max Schulz – PhD can­di­date (start­ing in May 2024), GitHub page
  • Moritz Hegert – stu­dent assistant
  • Lau­ra Roll – bach­e­lor student

Alum­ni
Han­nah Marie Meineke – mas­ter stu­dent, stu­dent assistant
Tro­by Ka-Yan Lui – PhD stu­dent
Felix Greul­ing – stu­dent assistant
Flo­ri­an Christo­pher Kroon – stu­dent assistant
Niko­las Makowka – lab manager
Jen­nifer Klotke – audiologist
Frauke Kraus – Intern

 

Projects

Under­stand­ing cap­ture and sup­pres­sion in audi­to­ry atten­tion (3‑year fund­ing from DFG)

Sta­tus: Project has start­ed in May 2024

Under­stand­ing the tem­po­ral dynam­ics of the audi­to­ry atten­tion­al fil­ter (sup­port­ed by DFG fund­ing, 2019–2023)

Sta­tus: Project fin­ished, some final data analy­ses in preparation

Project pub­li­ca­tions

Lui T.K.-Y., Obleser J., Wöst­mann M. (2023). Slow neur­al oscil­la­tions explain tem­po­ral fluc­tu­a­tions in dis­tractibil­i­ty. Progress in Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy. 226, 102458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2023.102458

Lui, T.K.Y. & Wöst­mann M. (2022). Effects of tem­po­ral­ly reg­u­lar ver­sus irreg­u­lar dis­trac­tors on goal-direct­ed cog­ni­tion and behav­ior. Sci­en­tif­ic Reports. 12, 10020. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022–13211‑3

Wöst­mann M., Lui, T.K.-Y., Friese, K.H., Kre­it­e­wolf, J., Nau­jokat, M., & Obleser, J. (2020). The vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of work­ing mem­o­ry to dis­trac­tion is rhyth­mic. Neu­ropsy­cholo­gia, Vol­ume 146, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107505

Quan­tifi­ca­tion and pre­dic­tion of CI users’ bimodal ben­e­fit – A neu­ro-cog­ni­tive approach
(sup­port­ed by fund­ing from Cochlear, 2019–2023)

Sta­tus: Project fin­ished, data analy­ses and doc­u­men­ta­tion ongoing

Project pub­li­ca­tions

Kraus, F. Tune, S. Ruhe, A. Obleser, J., & Wöst­mann, M. (2021). Uni­lat­er­al acoustic degra­da­tion delays atten­tion­al sep­a­ra­tion of com­pet­ing speech. Trends in Hear­ing, Vol­ume 25, doi:10.1177÷23312165211013242

Rela­tion of Per­son­al­i­ty to Noise Sen­si­tiv­i­ty and Hearing-in-Noise
(sup­port­ed by fund­ing from Inter­na­tion­al Hear­ing Foun­da­tion, 2019–2020)

Sta­tus: Project finished

Project pub­li­ca­tions

Wöst­mann M., Erb J., Kre­it­e­wolf J., & Obleser J. (2021) Per­son­al­i­ty cap­tures dis­so­ci­a­tions of sub­jec­tive ver­sus objec­tive hear­ing in noise. R. Soc. Open Sci. 8: 210881. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210881

 

Select­ed Publications

Wöst­mann M., Störmer V., Obleser J., Ander­sen S.K., Gaspelin N., Geng J.J., Luck S.J., Noo­nan M.P., Slagter H., & Theeuwes J. (2022). Ten sim­ple rules to study dis­trac­tor sup­pres­sion. Progress in Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, 213 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2022.102269

Wöst­mann, M. (2022). Does atten­tion fol­low a rhythm? Nature Human Behav­iour, 6(9). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022–01365‑z

Schnei­der, D., Herb­st, S. K., Klatt, L.-I., & Wöst­mann, M. (2021). Tar­get enhance­ment or dis­trac­tor sup­pres­sion? Func­tion­al­ly dis­tinct alpha oscil­la­tions form the basis of atten­tion. The Euro­pean Jour­nal of Neu­ro­science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15309

Wöst­mann M., Alavash M., & Obleser J. (2019). Alpha oscil­la­tions in the human brain imple­ment dis­trac­tor sup­pres­sion inde­pen­dent of tar­get selec­tion. Jour­nal of Neu­ro­science, 39 (49), 9797–9805, doi: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1954–19.2019

Wöst­mann M., Vosskuhl J., Obleser J., & Her­rmann C.S. (2018). Oppo­site effects of lat­er­alised tran­scra­nial alpha ver­sus gam­ma stim­u­la­tion on audi­to­ry spa­tial atten­tion. Brain Stim­u­la­tion, 11:4, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2018.04.006

Wöst­mann M., Lim S.J., & Obleser J. (2017). The Human Neur­al Alpha Response to Speech is a Proxy of Atten­tion­al Con­trol. Cere­bral Cor­tex, 27(6): 3307–3317, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx074

Wöst­mann M., Her­rmann, B., Maess, B., & Obleser, J. (2016). Spa­tiotem­po­ral dynam­ics of audi­to­ry atten­tion syn­chro­nize with speech. PNAS, 113(14): 3873–3878, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523357113

Link to com­plete list of publications.

 

Select­ed Pub­lic Media Cov­er­age & Sci­ence Outreach

2024
Pod­cast “geWis­sKommt” on sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion (cre­at­ed with a group of Pschol­o­gy Mas­ter stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck)

Radio broad­cast for SWR Das Wis­sen on bet­ter listening

2021
Press release on Wöst­mann et al (2021). Roy­al Soci­ety Open Science

2020
Short report on Bild Online about Wöst­mann et al (2020). Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Neuroscience
Press release on Wöst­mann et al (2020). Jour­nal of CognitiveNeuroscience

2017
Short fea­ture in Bay­erisch­er Rund­funk on Wöst­mann et al (2016). PNAS

2016
NDR Schleswig-Hol­stein Mag­a­zin, short fea­ture about Wöst­mann et al (2016). PNAS
Press release on Wöst­mann et al (2016). PNAS

2015
Press Release on Wöst­mann et al (2015). Jour­nal of Neuroscience