Faculty Research
Eric Amazeen. Ecological and dynamical approaches to perception and action. Specific topics include: weight perception and the size-weight illusion, visual attention in coordinated activity, and intermodal aspects of vision and touch.
Nia Amazeen. (Area Head). The treatment of coordination, broadly defined as the global behavior that emerges through the interaction of components as a complex, dynamical system. I look for general principles in coordination patterns across people (social interactions) and within people (motor-respiratory and bimanual coordination) using the tools of dynamical systems analysis.
Gene Brewer. My interests include prospective memory, source memory, recognition memory, individual differences in working memory, and valence effects on memory. Additionally, I am interested in statistical models of memory and other statistical applications within psychology.
Ellen Campana. Second-language learning and perception and motor skills.
Micki Chi. How students learn with deep understanding, especially for complicated materials and concepts of processes; the role of representation in learning; the role of overt engagement activities in learning; and how learning can be enhanced from collaborative interactions, overhearing tutorial dialogues, etc.
Art Glenberg. How do words, objects, and events become meaningful to us? Glenberg and his students are attacking these problems by developing an embodied theory of cognition: All cognitive processes are based on neural processes of perception, action, and emotion. Recent work in the lab has demonstrated a) how language comprehension depends on action and emotion, b) the underlying bodily basis of statistical learning, c) contributions of mirror neurons to language and action understanding, and d) how embodiment theory can be used to design educational interventions to enhance young children's reading comprehension.
Steve Goldinger. Human memory, psycholinguistics and word recognition, and speech perception, representation, and production.
Don Homa. Visual perception of linguistic and form stimuli; retrieval and decision processes in long- and short-term memory; semantic memory and multidimensional scaling; and the learning of abstract categories.
Pat Langley. Artificial intelligence; Adaptive user interfaces; Cognitive architectures; Computational models of human behavior; Computational biology and ecology; Computational scientific discovery; Machine learning; Problem solving and planning.
Mike McBeath. Baseball: Use of group center-of attention as a cue. Robotic simulation of human catching heuristics. Audition: Dynamic pitch perception and auditory scene analysis. Virtual pitch perception. Navigation: Navigation of the World Wide Web. Multisensory spatial perception.
Clark Presson. Development of spatial knowledge and reasoning, the use of spatial symbols, applications of cognitive development to child and adolescent health psychology, and processes of initiation of cigarette smoking.
Greg Stone. Human cognitive psychology, especially word recognition, attention, semantic organization, and theoretical methods. Dr. Stone's theoretical work includes the development of formal models such as parallel distributed processing systems and their application to cognitive phenomena.