Dan Wang

Dan Wang

@danwang7.bsky.social

PhD candidate Utrecht University|AttentionLab UU | CAP-Lab | Visual working memory | Attention

241 followers99 following21 posts

Dan Wang reposted

Surya Gayet
@suryagayet.bsky.social

Replying to @suryagayet.bsky.social

She presented her work that was recently published in Nature Communications Biology, together with co-author @jthee.bsky.social and her other supervisors Sam Chota and Stefan van der Stigchel (@attentionlab.bsky.social): share.google/6wnzEI1Eop8q...

share.googleDynamic competition between bottom-up saliency and top-down goals in early visual cortex - Communications BiologyUsing Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging, we show that a salient distractor initially competes with target processing but is later actively suppressed, revealing the timeline of how bottom-up saliency and top-down control shape early visual responses.
Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

Thanks to my amazing panel of supervisors @suryagayet.bsky.social @schota.bsky.social @Stefan van der Stigchel and collaborators @arora-borealis.bsky.social @jthee.bsky.social for making this possible!!!🙌🏼🙌🏼

Surya Gayet@suryagayet.bsky.social

Wooow! @danwang7.bsky.social just won the Early Career Excellence Award at the APCV/EPC 2026 meeting! As her supervisor in the past 3 yrs, I have seen so much professional & personal growth. It makes me incredibly proud that this was also seen by an independent jury on the other side of the planet.

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

Exciting to share that our paper is out now! Using EEG + RIFT, we reveal the temporal dynamics of attentional competition between target and distractor in early visual processing. We show that distractor initially compete with the target, and then suppressed. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

nature.comDynamic competition between bottom-up saliency and top-down goals in early visual cortex - Communications BiologyUsing Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging, we show that a salient distractor initially competes with target processing but is later actively suppressed, revealing the timeline of how bottom-up saliency ...

Dan Wang reposted

Damian Koevoet
@dkoevoet.bsky.social

Past experiences shape current selection. But when and how strong are past and present targets represented in the brain? In our newest paper, we show that past and present search targets are concurrently represented in the brain. Out now in @plosbiology.org doi.org/10.1371/jour... #neuroscience

doi.orgPast and present goals are represented concurrently during visual searchPast experience and our current goals guide what information to focus on. But how and when does the brain represent the past and the present? This new study shows that the brain represents the past an...

Dan Wang reposted

Surya Gayet
@suryagayet.bsky.social

New paper alert: very proud to share our review published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, spearheaded by @maellelerebourg.bsky.social, and together with @peelen.bsky.social and @predictivebrain.bsky.social, about goal-directed search in real-world environments. See below for a thread/tldr!

Maëlle Lerebourg@maellelerebourg.bsky.social

What do we look for when searching for objects in our daily-life environments? Very happy that I can now share this review, together with @suryagayet.bsky.social , @predictivebrain.bsky.social and @peelen.bsky.social🥳 A brief thread below!

Dan Wang reposted

Olaf Dimigen
@olaf.dimigen.de

🚨 New preprint: Invisible neural frequency tagging (RIFT) for the underfunded researcher: 👉 www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... RIFT uses high-frequency flicker to probe attention in M/EEG with minimal stimulus visibility and little distraction. Until now, it required a costly high-speed projector.

biorxiv.orgRapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) with a consumer monitor: A proof-of-conceptRapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) enables neural frequency tagging at rates above the flicker fusion threshold, eliciting steady-state responses to flicker that is almost imperceptible. While R...

Dan Wang reposted

lassedietz.bsky.social
@lassedietz.bsky.social

Excited to present at #ECVP2025 - Monday afternoon, Learning & Memory - about how anticipating relevant visual events prepares visual processing for efficient memory-guided visual selection! 🧠🥳 @attentionlab.bsky.social @ecvp.bsky.social Preprint for more details: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgAnticipated Relevance Prepares Visual Processing for Efficient Memory-Guided SelectionFinding an object typically involves the use of working memory to prioritize relevant visual information at the right time. For example, successfully detecting a highway exit sign is useless when your...

Dan Wang reposted

Nature Human Behaviour
@nathumbehav.nature.com

In this Article, Paluch et al. show that unattended working memory items, as well as attended ones, are encoded in persistent activity in the medial temporal lobe. @jankaminski.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comUnattended working memory items are coded by persistent activity in human medial temporal lobe neurons - Nature Human BehaviourPaluch et al. show that unattended working memory items, as well as attended ones, are encoded in persistent activity in the medial temporal lobe.

Dan Wang reposted

Ayelet Landau
@ayeletlandau.bsky.social

Thrilled to share our new opinion piece—hot off the press—on attentional sampling, co-authored with the magnificent Flor Kusnir and Daniele Re. It captures where our thinking has landed on this topic after years of work. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

cell.comAttentional sampling resolves competition along the visual hierarchyNavigating the environment involves engaging with multiple objects, each activating specific neuronal populations. When objects appear together, these populations compete. Classical attention theories...

Dan Wang reposted

theeuweslab.bsky.social
@theeuweslab.bsky.social

Last week's symposium titled "Advances in the Encephalographic Study of Attention" was a great success! Held in the KNAW building in Amsterdam and sponsored by the NWO, many of (Europe's) leading attention researchers assembled to discuss the latest advances in attention research using M/EEG.

Dan Wang reposted

Damian Koevoet
@dkoevoet.bsky.social

Now published in Attention, Perception & Psychophysics @psychonomicsociety.bsky.social Open Access link: doi.org/10.3758/s134...

link.springer.comReappearing sensory input guides visual working memory prioritization - Attention, Perception, & PsychophysicsAdaptive behavior necessitates the prioritization of the most relevant information in the environment (external) and in memory (internal). Internal prioritization is known to guide the selection of ex...
Damian Koevoet@dkoevoet.bsky.social

In a dynamic world, items appear, disappear, and reappear within seconds. In our latest preprint (now with an additional experiment) we show: the reappearance of maintained items guides the prioritization of non-reappearing memory items. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgSensory Input Matching Visual Working Memory Guides Internal PrioritizationAdaptive behavior necessitates the prioritization of the most relevant information in the environment (external) and in memory (internal). Internal prioritization is known to guide the selection of ex...

Dan Wang reposted

Ole Jensen
@olejensen.bsky.social

In our new MEG/RIFT study from @thechbh.bsky.social by @katduecker.bsky.social , we show that feature-guidance in visual search alters neuronal excitability in early visual cortex —supporting a priority-map-based attentional mechanism. rdcu.be/eqFX7

rdcu.beGuided visual search is associated with target boosting and distractor suppression in early visual cortexCommunications Biology - Magnetoencephalography in human participants paired with Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging reveals that excitability in early visual cortex is modulated to boost targets...

Dan Wang reposted

Surya Gayet
@suryagayet.bsky.social

Good morning #VSS2025, if you care for a chat about the role of attention in binding object features (during perceptual encoding and memory maintenance), drop by my poster now (8:30-12:30) in the pavilion (422). Hope to see you there!

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

In conclusion, observers can flexibly de-prioritize and re-prioritize VWM contents based on current task demands, allowing observers to exert control over the extent to which VWM contents influence concurrent visual processing.

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

In the end, we found no evidence that the influence of non-prioritized memory items on early visual processing differs between the three experimental paradigms. And we found non-prioritized memory items influence early visual processing when we combined the data from three experiments.

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

In Experiment 1, we found that both prioritized memory items and non-prioritized memory items can impact early visual processing, as through reports of conscious access, with prioritized memory items influencing early visual processing more strongly than non-prioritized memory items.

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

However, in Experiment 2, we we found that only memory items in a prioritized state influenced early visual processing, as measured through the allocation of spatial attention.

Dan Wang
@danwang7.bsky.social

We focused on two key aspects of early visual processing: access to visual awareness and attention allocation. We used three perceptual tasks: the breaking continuous flash suppression task (Experiment 1), the attentional capture task (Experiment 2), and a visual search task (Experiment 3).

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