Trouble concentrating? UCI wants to help

UCI has been awarded a $1.6-million grant to study attention processes that affect listening, learning, walking and working. The National Institute of Mental Health provided the grant to the department of cognitive sciences at UCI and the department of psychology at USC.

The grant will go to support a study by UCI researcher Barbara Dosher, a UCI cognitive sciences professor and School of Social Sciences dean, as well as Zhong-Lin Lu, a researcher from USC.

The study will begin in July and will focus on behavioral and computational testing that hope to illustrate how individuals filter and process visual information during a 5-year time period.

“Attention plays a critical role in selecting and enhancing relevant information and filtering out irrelevant information,” Dosher said in a news release.

Information concerning problems with attention could also give insight to secondary issues with schizophrenia and some forms of stress, Dosher said.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.