Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Multidisciplinary Activities awarded $521,472 to the University of Missouri System (Curators of the University of Missouri) under the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program (CFDA 47.075) to fund a three-year research project running from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2029. The project, titled "A Revised Signal Suppression Account of Learned Attentional Control," delivers empirical research and analysis on how the human brain inhibits salient distractors and learns to focus attention in complex visual environments. Using eye-tracking technology and neural measurement techniques including event-related potentials (ERPs), the research team will conduct cognitive experiments that measure saccadic eye movements and neural activity to understand attentional suppression mechanisms and the flexibility limits of distractor inhibition.

The deliverables from this award include experimental findings on how attentional systems decide what to ignore, with application potential for developing technologies that minimize distraction in both natural and human-computer interface settings. The research addresses fundamental questions about learned attentional control relevant to practical safety applications, such as understanding why salient warning signals are sometimes ignored in applied environments. The work will be performed at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and contributes to the NSF's broader mission of supporting basic research in behavioral and cognitive sciences.