The ESCoP Early Career Publication Award for Post-docs 2020 was given to Freek van Ede from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
Awarded paper: van Ede, F., Chekroud, S. R., & Nobre, A. C. (2019). Human gaze tracks attentional focusing in memorized visual space. Nature human behaviour, 3(5), 462-470.
The study measures continuous recall and fine-grained gaze position during a series of visual memory tasks. Dr. van Ede’s data presentation vividly portrays relationships between the original positions of cued items and gaze direction, which is consistent with the suggestion that the occulomotor system is involved with focusing attention, even toward internally-represented space. We were impressed with the clever application of eye-tracking to classic experimental designs and with the exquisite data presentation which highlighted the effects of primary theoretical interest while also showing variability. Congratulations!