Dana Hayward, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

attention social cognition eye-tracking real-world investigations

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About

I am an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Alberta. Prior to this appointment I was a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. I completed my PhD and MSc in Psychology at McGill University (Montréal, Québec), my BEd at York University (Toronto, Ontario) and my BSc in Human Behavioural Biology at the University of Toronto.

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Research

I am a cognitive neuroscientist, with an interest in spatial attention and some decision-making. While some of my work focuses on attention to nonsocial information, I am currently keen on investigating how more 'affective' stimuli (such as motivation/reward or people/eyes) influence attention. My research program is comprised of at least three broad themes.

Prioritization (WHAT). I am interested in the circumstances in which we prioritize attending to certain information over others. For instance, are there certain situations where we’re more likely to prioritize attention to social information? Are we more likely to focus on social information when we’re alone versus in groups? How does motivation/reward play a role in this prioritization?  

Context (WHERE). I am interested in investigating attention across contexts, such as delineating the instances where attention acts in similar ways across lab-based studies and real-life situations, along with situations where they do not. For example, do rewards in 'real life' shape our attention in the same way they do for lab-based tasks? Do we pay attention to people in the same way when we're face-to-face with them versus when we're not?

Individual Variation (WHO). I am interested in “what we bring to the table” when we are paying attention to various information. Specifically, does our personality, character traits and preferences affect attention, and if so, how? Does attention vary from person to person, or between different mental illnesses? I'm also interested in how we interact with other people, and varying factors such as their familiarity, the goal or task of the interaction (including when we play games with others), the location of the interaction, etc.

I will be accepting graduate students to begin Fall 2026. See the lab website and contact me for more details.

Saeeda Saeed, Arianna Cook, Victoria Mackie & Dana A. Hayward

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale. 2024 March; 78 (1):1-8 10.1037/cep0000323

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Helen L. Ma, Jennifer Bertrand, Craig S. Chapman & Dana A. Hayward

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2023 October; 49 (10):1330-1344 10.1037/xhp0001150

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YanFei Song, Helen L. Ma & Dana A. Hayward

Visual Cognition. 2023 June; 31 (10):769-785 10.1080/13506285.2024.2357851

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Jingru Ha, Dana A. Hayward

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. 2023 January; 10.3758/s13414-022-02618-9

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Kyle Nash, Josh Leota, Tobias Kleinert, Dana A Hayward

Cerebral Cortex. 2022 August; 10.1093/cercor/bhac307

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Helen L. Ma, Michael Dawson, Ruby S. Prinsen, Dana Hayward

Theory & Psychology. 2022 January; 10.1177/09593543221126165

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Devon S. Heath, Nimrit Jhinjar, Dana A. Hayward

Scientific Reports. 2021 July; 10.1038/s41598-021-94117-4

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Heath, D.S. & Hayward, D.A.

Frontiers for Young Minds. 2019 December; 7 (130):1-7

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Hayward, D.A., Pereira, E.J., Otto, A.R., & Ristic, J

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2018 January; 44 (2):206-214

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Hayward, D.A., Voorhies, W., Morris, J.A., Capozzi, F., & Ristic, J.

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale. 2017 January; 71 (3):212-225

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