Event:

Much is known about the mechanisms by which attention is focused to facilitate perception, but little is known about the suppressive mechanisms that are used to prevent the brain from orienting to salient but irrelevant information or to terminate an episode of attention after perception of the attended object is complete. In this talk, I review recent advances in understanding these aspects of attentional control by using the Pd component of the event-related potential waveform, a neural index of attentional suppression. These studies suggest that the active suppression mechanism indexed by the Pd component is used to prevent attention from being directed to distractors and terminates attention after perception is complete or after attention has been oriented to an inappropriate object. Also, I will present new studies providing evidence that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in this attentional suppression.