Dr. Watson is a cognitive psychologist by training with interests in attention, and more specifically the control of attention, as it relates to on-task behaviors and minimizing distractions, which can be observed in both traditional laboratory experiments as well as in more applied settings. With respect to the latter, Dr. Watson has taken a growing empirical and theoretical interest in the extent to which nature/urban settings impact our attention and mood/emotion, and whether that generalizes to measures of attentional performance using a variety of different cognitive tasks. Consistent with that interest, he is the lead guest editor on a forthcoming Special Issue at the Journal of Cognitive Psychology considering the value of a tetrahedral model to researchers who wish to organize and synthesize nature’s influence on attention with respect to materials, outcomes, participants, and context.
