Skip to content

Research Interests and Publications

What are the mechanisms that allow the visual system to attend to and maintain information about objects in the immediate visual environment? My research examines the operation of visual working memory, and the selective attention processes that interact with this storage mechanism.

Specifically, I have studied a range of related topics, including: individual differences in the capacity of visual working memory; the time-course of encoding information into visual working memory; and characterizing the attentional processes that control the transfer of information into visual working memory. I use both psychophysical and neurophysiological methods to study these topics.

My primary approach to examining these processes is with the event-related potential (ERP) technique because it provides a continuous measure of processing with a fine temporal resolution. I also use functional neuroimaging (fMRI) in combination with ERP recordings to provide both anatomical and temporal constraints for existing cognitive theories of visual working memory and selective attention.

Dr. Vogel will not be accepting new students.

Selected Publications:

Vogel, E. K., McCollough, A. W., & Machizawa, M. G. (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to visual working memory. Nature, 428, 784-751.

Vogel, E. K., Woodman, G. F., & Luck, S. J. (2005). Pushing around the locus of selection: Evidence for the flexible selection hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 1907-1922.

Woodman, G. F. & Vogel, E. K. (2005). Fractionating working memory: Memory encoding and maintenance are independent processes. Psychological Science, 16, 106-113.

Vogel, E. K. & Machizawa, M. G. (2004). Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature, 428, 784-751.