Faculty Profile

Visual Attention Laboratory
Division of Sleep Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital

My research is primarily concerned with studying how visual attention is controlled in a dynamic world. The brain must efficiently allocate limited processing resources to deal with complex stream of visual information arriving from the eyes. This is the phenomenon of selective attention. How is attention deployed? How do we search for desired objects in the visual field? How do we track moving objects? These are the broad questions which motivate my research. In the context of Sleep Medicine, I am interested in how the global state of the observer (sleep, wakefulness, and circadian phase) affects various aspects of attention (and cognition in general).

NIH/NIMH, Control of Dynamic Attention, Todd S. Horowitz, PhD

Joseph RM, Keehn B, Connolly C, Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS. Why is visual search superior in autism spectrum disorder?
Dev Sci. 2009 Nov;12(6):1083-96. [PMID: 19840062]

Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM, Alvarez GA, Cohen MA, Kuzmova YI. The speed of free will.
Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester). 2009 Nov;62(11):2262-88. Epub 2009 Mar 2. [PMID: 19255946]

Howe PD, Horowitz TS, Morocz IA, Wolfe J, Livingstone MS. Using fMRI to distinguish components of the multiple object tracking task.
J Vis. 2009 Apr 13;9(4):10.1-11.[PMID: 19757919]

Cohen MA, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Apr 7;106(14):6008-10. Epub 2009 Mar 23.[PMID: 19307569]

Van Wert MJ, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Even in correctable search, some types of rare targets are frequently missed.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2009 Apr;71(3):541-53.[PMID: 19304645]

Drew T, McCollough AW, Horowitz TS, Vogel EK. Attentional enhancement during multiple-object tracking.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2009 Apr;16(2):411-7.[PMID: 19293115]

Kunar MA, Carter R, Cohen M, Horowitz TS. Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Dec;15(6):1135-40.[PMID: 19001580]

Rich AN, Kunar MA, Van Wert MJ, Hidalgo-Sotelo B, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Why do we miss rare targets? Exploring the boundaries of the low prevalence effect.
J Vis. 2008 Nov 24;8(15):15.1-17.[PMID: 19146299]

Intraub H, Daniels KK, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Looking at scenes while searching for numbers: dividing attention multiplies space.
Percept Psychophys. 2008 Oct;70(7):1337-49.[PMID: 18927017]

Santhi N, Aeschbach D, Horowitz TS, Czeisler CA. The Impact of Sleep Timing and Bright Light Exposure on Attentional Impairment during Night Work.
J Biol Rhythms. 2008 Aug;23(4): 341-52. [PMID: 18663241]

Howe PD, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Transient signals per se do not disrupt the flash-lag effect.
Behav Brain Sci. 2008 Apr;31(2):206. [PMID: 19779598]

Horowitz TS, Thornton IM. Objects or Locations in Vision for Action? Evidence from the MILO task.
Vis cogn. 2008 Jan 1;16(4):486-513. [PMID: 19730706]

Santhi N, Horowitz TS, Duffy JF, Czeisler CA. Acute sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment associated with transition onto the first night of work impairs visual selective attention.
PLoS One. 2007 Nov 28;2(11):e1233. [PMID: 18043740]

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Van Wert MJ, Kenner NM, Place SS, Kibbi N. Low target prevalence is a stubborn source of errors in visual search tasks.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2007 Nov;136(4):623-38. [PMID: 17999575]

Kunar MA, Flusberg S, Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Does contextual cuing guide the deployment of attention?
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2007 Aug;33(4):816-28. [PMID: 17683230]

Fencsik DE, Klieger SB, Horowitz TS. The role of location and motion information in the tracking and recovery of moving objects.
Percept Psychophys. 2007 May;69(4):567-77. [PMID: 17727110]

Horowitz TS, Fine EM, Fencsik DE, Yurgenson S, Wolfe JM. Fixational eye movements are not an index of covert attention.
Psychol Sci. 2007 Apr;18(4):356-63. [PMID: 17470262]

Wolfe JM, Place SS, Horowitz TS. Multiple object juggling: changing what is tracked during extended multiple object tracking.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2007 Apr;14(2):344-9. [PMID: 17694924]

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Michod KO. Is visual attention required for robust picture memory?
Vision Res. 2007 Mar;47(7):955-64. Epub 2007 Feb 16. [PMID: 17306854]

Horowitz TS, Klieger SB, Fencsik DE, Yang KK, Alvarez GA, Wolfe JM. Tracking unique objects.
Percept Psychophys. 2007 Feb;69(2):172-84. [PMID: 17557588]

Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM, DiMase JS, Klieger SB. Visual search for type of motion is based on simple motion primitives.
Perception. 2007;36(11):1624-34. [PMID: 18265843]

Horowitz TS, Birnkrant RS, Fencsik DE, Tran L, Wolfe JM. How do we track invisible objects?
Psychon Bull Rev. 2006 Jun;13(3):516-23. [PMID: 17048740]

Horowitz TS, Choi WY, Horvitz JC, Cote LJ, Mangels JA. Visual search deficits in Parkinson's disease are attenuated by bottom-up target salience and top-down information.
Neuropsychologia. 2006 Mar 29; [Epub ahead of print] [PMID: 16580700]

Alvarez GA, Horowitz TS, Arsenio HC, Dimase JS, Wolfe JM. Do multielement visual tracking and visual search draw continuously on the same visual attention resources?
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2005 Aug;31(4):643-67. [PMID: 16131240]

Wolfe JM, Birnkrant RS, Kunar MA, Horowitz TS. Visual search for transparency and opacity: attentional guidance by cue combination?
J Vis. 2005 Mar 30;5(3):257-74. [PMID: 15929650]

Santhi N, Duffy JF, Horowitz TS, Czeisler CA. Scheduling of sleep/darkness affects the circadian phase of night shift workers.
Neurosci Lett. 2005 Aug 26;384(3):316-20. Erratum in: Neurosci Lett. 2005 Dec 30;390(3):187. [PMID: 15919151]

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Kenner NM. Cognitive psychology: rare items often missed in visual searches.
Nature. 2005 May 26;435(7041):439-40. [PMID: 15917795]

Horowitz TS, Holcombe AO, Wolfe JM, Arsenio HC, DiMase JS. Attentional pursuit is faster than attentional saccade.
J Vis. 2004 Jul 20;4(7):585-603. [PMID: 15330704]

Thornton IM, Horowitz TS. The multi-item localization (MILO) task: measuring the spatiotemporal context
of vision for action.
Percept Psychophys. 2004 Jan;66(1):38-50. [PMID: 15095938]

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Kenner N, Hyle M, Vasan N. How fast can you change your mind? The speed of top-down guidance in visual search.
Vision Res. 2004 Jun;44(12):1411-26. [PMID: 15066400]

Horowitz TS, Cade BE, Wolfe JM, Czeisler CA. Searching night and day: a dissociation of effects of circadian phase and time awake on visual selective attention and vigilance.
Psychol Sci. 2003 Nov;14(6):549-57. [PMID: 14629685]

Wolfe JM, Oliva A, Horowitz TS, Butcher SJ, Bompas A. Segmentation of objects from backgrounds in visual search tasks.
Vision Res. 2002 Dec;42(28):2985-3004. [PMID: 12480070]

Horowitz TS, Cade BE, Wolfe JM, Czeisler CA. Efficacy of bright light and sleep/darkness scheduling in alleviating circadian maladaptation to night work.
Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2001 Aug;281(2):E384-91. [PMID: 11440916]

Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Search for multiple targets: remember the targets, forget the search.
Percept Psychophys. 2001 Feb;63(2):272-85. [PMID: 11281102]

Wolfe JM, Alvarez GA, Horowitz TS. Attention is fast but volition is slow.
Nature. 2000 Aug 17;406(6797):691. [PMID: 10963584]

Horowitz TS, Wolfe JM. Visual search has no memory.
Nature. 1998 Aug 6;394(6693):575-7. [PMID: 9707117]

Reviews

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS. What attributes guide the deployment of visual attention and how do they do it?
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2004 Jun;5(6):495-501. Review. [PMID: 15152199]

Horowitz TS, Tanigawa T. Circadian-based new technologies for night workers.
Ind Health. 2002 Jul;40(3):223-36. Review. [PMID: 12141370]