Snigdha Banerjee
Graduate Student
Doctoral program in Psychology
Subprogram in Cognitive Neuroscience
City University of New York (CUNY)
Research Interests:
- My current project examines the mechanisms of auditory spatial attention through electroencephalography (EEG). Alpha band oscillatory activity (8-14 Hz) is known to reflect attentional suppression mechanisms for inputs at to-be-ignored regions of visual space (Worden, Foxe et al. 2000; Kelly, Lalor et al. 2006; Thut, Nietzel et al. 2006). That is, increases in alpha-band power are observed over parietal-occipital cortex contralateral to locations that are expected to contain distractors. It is not yet known if a similar process operates during deployment of spatial attention in other sensory modalities (i.e. audition). Results from our purely auditory spatial task indicate that alpha-band mechanisms are key to spatial attention deployments across sensory modalities. The scalp topography data also suggests that these mechanisms are invoked in a sensory-specific manner.
Representative Publications:
- Banerjee, S., Molholm, S., Snyder, A. C., & Foxe, J. J. (In press). Oscillatory alpha-band mechanisms and the deployment of spatial attention to anticipated auditory and visual target locations: common or separable control mechanisms? Journal of Neuroscience.