PIPages
Labs

Andrew Lynn

University of Louisville, KY·Psychology

Paying attention to something can make us see it better: sharper and with more sensitivity to faint contrast. In adults this effect is well documented.

Fields

Psychology

Neuroscience

Topics

visual attention

visual perception

child development

Grants
1 known grant, through May 2029

What they work on

  1. Track within-child development of contrast sensitivity and visual acuity in 6–12-year-olds for a central sinusoidal grating across detection and recognition tasks, using eye tracking and adaptive psychometric methods.
  2. Measure how valid, neutral and invalid attention cues improve or worsen children's contrast sensitivity and acuity, charting developmental trajectories of attentional enhancement.
  3. Test with advanced longitudinal modeling whether improvements in attentional enhancement predict later refinement of visual perception across childhood.

More about the research

But it is unclear when it emerges in childhood, or whether better attention helps tune vision as children grow. These questions matter for cerebral visual impairment (CVI), a brain-based vision disorder. CVI is a leading cause of low vision in US children and involves problems with visual attention.

Why it matters

Mapping how attention and vision develop together in typical children provides a baseline for understanding what goes wrong in cerebral visual impairment. Findings could inform behavioral interventions to improve visual attention in children with CVI, pediatric brain injury or neurodevelopmental disorders.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Examining attentional enhancement of visual perception across childhood

NIH · Jun 2026 – May 2029

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The school

University of Louisville: 15 labs on PI Pages, $225M a year on research, 159 research doctorates a year.

More about University of Louisville

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