Kanav Kahol Website

Research Summary

At the psychological level, Attention implies a preferential allocation of the limited processing resources and response channels to events that have become behaviorally relevant. At the neural level, attention refers to reversible modulations in the selectivity, intensity and duration of neuronal responses to such events. Current approaches to modeling of attention in computer science are severely limited and lack proper understanding of the process of attention. Several psychological models have been proposed to identify the modules of attention (for example models proposed by Posner et al., Cohen et al., Humphreys and Riddoch) and have been used to explain certain attentional disorders such as hemispatial neglect to some extent. Recent research in neurology has identified that attention is not a specialized process belonging to a central location in the brain. It is, in fact, an emergent phenomenon arising out of mediation of neurons in a large scale distributed network.

Research Approach

In th is research we intend to develop a neurolgoical and psycholgically coherent model of human attention. The objective is to develop a simulation model of computational attention that mimics the human behavior. Our aim is to develop a complete model that incorporates memory, learning and other factors that influence attention. We are influenced by Mesulams model of attention and are currently developing models of attention at various levels of processing. My role in this project is in the computational modeling side. I am primarily interested to get experience in this domain and extend my haptic work in the future to include neurological modeling.