Attention and Decision Making

In this research field we investigate the human capability of attending to stimuli in the environment that are relevant for goal-directed behavior and decision making. We cover the range from basic questions of attention research to attentional orienting in applied contexts, such as making professional and personal decisions. The basic research questions in this field include single and multi-modal attention processes where we investigate, for example, what kind of stimuli attract attention and how humans direct  attention towards task-relevant and away from irrelevant information. The applied research questions are similar but aim at specific real-world scenarios such as attention to auditory stimuli when driving a car, information selection in consumer decisions, decisions in expert organizations, attentional blindness in coping, and the avoidance of cognitive biases.

• Ocular mechanisms in internally directed cognition (EyeMag 2). 2021-2024. Funded by FWF (Austrian Science Foundation). PI: Mathias Benedek.
• Study of transitions in binocular rivalry. (2020-2024). Funded by FWF (Austrian Science Foundation). PI: Natalia Zaretskaya.
• Personalisiertes, adaptives Informationssystem zur Unterstützung von berufsrelevanten Entscheidungen (PAISA). 2020-2021. Funded by Arbeiterkammer Steiermark (Chamber of Employees, Styria). PI: Dietrich Albert.
• Experiments on the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift. (2019-2023). Funded by FWF (Austrian Science Foundation). PI: Stefan Palan.
• Contract Decisions of Consumers between Law and Psychology (CLP), since 2014. Funded by Land Steiermark and University of Graz. PI: Brigitta Lurger & Ursula Athenstaedt.

• Lurger, B (2017). Psychology Meets Law: In Search for New Tools of Consumer Self-Protection, Netherlands Journal of Consumer Law (TvC) 2017/6, 248-256
• Zimmer, U., Höfler, M., Koschutnig, K., Ischebeck, A. (2016) Neuronal interactions in areas of spatial attention reflect avoidance of disgust, but orienting to danger, Neuroimage, 134, 94-104.
• Lurger, B., Vorgrincic-Haselbacher, C., Caks, F., Anslinger, J., Dinslaken, I., & Athenstaedt, U. (in press). Consumer Decisions Under High Information Load: How Can Legal Rules Improve Search Behavior and Decision Quality? doi:10.2139/ssrn.2731655.
• Hoefler, Margit; Gilchrist, Iain D.; Körner, Christof (2015). Guidance toward and away from distractors in repeated visual search. Journal of Vision, 15(5), 1-14.
• Brandstätter, E. & Körner, C. (2014). Attention in risky choice. Acta Psychologica, 152, 166-176.