Summer Program on Mind and Brain
Faculty Mentors for the 2009 Summer Program
Dr. Anne Cleary studies human recognition memory, or how it is that people recognize that they have experienced something before. Her particular interest is in when people recognize something based on a feeling of familiarity, such as when you recognize a person’s face as familiar, but cannot recall anything specific about the person. She is also interested in relating feelings of familiarity to such common experiences as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (when you know that a word is in your memory, about to be recalled, but you momentarily cannot access it), and déjà vu experiences (the feeling of having been someplace or seen something before).
Dr. Benjamin Clegg investigates aspects of human performance. Much of this work has centered on the general topic of skill acquisition. A core component of this research has been studies of implicit learning, that is, knowledge acquired without any direct intention to learn it, and with limited subsequent awareness of the information that has been learned. Dr Clegg’s research explores the nature of the representation of the unconscious knowledge used to guide performance. The central issues revolve around how you learn things, and what you then know. This work has included the use of a number of basic research paradigms (such as sequence learning in the serial reaction time task, and the Hebb Digits task), as well as more complex real-world tasks (such as driving).
Dr. Deana Davalos investigates temporal processing, aspects of cognitive aging, and cognitive processes in clinical populations. One line of research focuses on understanding the development of time processing abilities over the life span. Of particular interest is the relationship between one's ability to process time accurately and higher cognitive skills such as planning, sequencing, and executive functioning. Dr. Davalos also studies time processing in clinical populations. Her research involves behavioral testing, EEG, and neuropsychological testing. Dr. Davalos conducts her research in a facility suitable for both behavioral and EEG/ERP studies. She also maintains active collaborations with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Center for Neurorehabilitiation Services.
Dr. Edward DeLosh studies various aspects of human learning and memory. One line of research focuses on how the distinctive features of items versus the relationship between items influence memory. This issue is considered as it relates to phenomenon such as the bizarreness effect, word frequency effect, generation effect, and false recognition. Other research interests examine how study schedules (spacing vs. massing) and the act of retrieving information (generating it on your own or being tested on it) affect subsequent memory for that information. An additional line of research considers the role of memory for individual instances versus abstraction in conceptual behavior such as prediction, interpolation, and extrapolation. Although much of Dr. DeLosh’s work is conducted with young adults, these and other topics in are also considered as they apply to healthy aging.
Dr. David McCabe investigates human memory, as well. Questions addressed in the lab include: Is working memory capacity, i.e., the ability to concurrently maintain and manipulate information, related to episodic memory? Can people accurately report when they are experiencing conscious recollection? Are people accurate in their assessments of how much they can remember over the short term? Experimental and individual differences methodologies are used to study episodic memory, working memory capacity, and metamemory. Much of this research focuses on adult age differences in memory performance.
Dr. Patrick Monnier is interested in how humans perceive the world, and in particular, how we perceive colors. He is especially interested in the influence of context on color appearance, what is commonly referred to as chromatic induction. In this work, Dr. Monnier uses psychophysics to make quantitative estimates of color appearance using well-calibrated computer monitors and by having observers make color-matching judgments. The quantitative measurements are then used to deduce the neural substrate that gives rise to these percepts. Another area of interest is visual attention, especially how color can guide visual search. A practical application of Dr. Monnier's work is the development of better interfaces where color may be used to code information efficiently while minimizing errors.
Dr. Matthew Rhodes studies human memory, with a major focus on how subjective experience is related to memory performance, particularly for tasks such as predicting future memory performance. Other work examines subjective experience and its relation to memory accuracy, including how it pertains to aging populations. Dr. Rhodes also maintains lines of work examining memory for faces, predictors of individual differences in memory accuracy, and recognition memory processes.
Dr. Carol Seger studies how people learn about patterns present in the world, including concepts, categories, visual patterns, sequences, rules, and skills. She is interested in how patterns are represented in the mind and brain, how they affect our behavior, and how their representations are changed by experience. Much of the current research in her lab examines how the basal ganglia interact with cerebral cortexto subserve learning. In addition to behavioral techniques, her lab utilizes functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography.
Dr. Lucy Troup investigates how the brain processes visual information. She is particularly interested in how low level perceptual representation is linked to high-level conscious perception. Recent work includes using event-related potentials to investigate the nature of face perception and expertise in the brain. Other research includes using EEG to investigate how information about the visual image is bound together to form a complete perception (for example, how color and form information is bound together). In collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Computer Science, Dr. Troup is also involved in research evaluating face recognition algorithms, as well as how understanding human vision can help create artificial computer vision systems.
Dr. Vicki Volbrecht investigates the neural processes mediating color perception. The major focus of her research is the study of color vision in the peripheral retina and the differences between foveal and peripheral color perception. Overall, her work seeks to assess the role of rods in color perception using bleach and no-bleach procedures. This work is conducted on a Maxwellian-view optical system interfaced with a computer. All psychophysical observers are tested for color vision deficiencies using pseudisochromatic plates, several panel tests, and Neitz anomaloscope.