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__________________________
Lab
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Recent research projects
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Orthographic Priming
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that comparing word/word and nonword/word interactions can reveal
unique properties of word processing. For example, results
from masked priming experiments using prime/target pairs like
house/HORSE and porse/HORSE have been used as evidence
for the existence of a mental lexicon and functional differences
between words and nonwords. These studies may also provide evidence for or
against specific models and theories of word recognition. In a
series of experiments we are attempting to replicate and extend a
number of findings from the masked priming literature.
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Position Coding
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Recent models of word recognition
have been designed to account for mounting evidence that letters are
not coded in position specific slots. These models posit different
solutions for the problem, but are relatively new, thus they have
not been tested as extensively as previous models. I am
investigating letter position coding in a couple of ways. One method
has been to examine report of letter order in RSVP.
A second, more traditional, method involves the use of orthographic
priming and the lexical decision task.. |
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My current work examines how
letter order is coded using various anagram primes and targets
(e.g., elba - ABLE). Although previous work has indicated that some
relative letter position must be maintained between prime and target
to obtain orthographic priming, results from our lab contradict this
assumption. |
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Repetition Blindness
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theories have been proposed to explain repetition blindness (RB), no
one theory has been able to accommodate all of the basic RB
findings. In response to this, Alison Morris, Catherine
Caldwell-Harris, and myself have developed the competition model of
RB. We propose that repetition produces a representation with a
higher signal-to-noise ratio but also produces a disadvantage in
that item's ability to compete for access to awareness. |
| Our current work looks
to extend the Competition Model of RB to orthographic priming.
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| My master's thesis
experiments investigated the
necessity of conscious awareness in producing the repetition
blindness phenomenon. Three experiments used a novel RSVP paradigm
to investigate this topic.
(Abstract) (Full text available upon request) |
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Areas of interest in Cognitive
psychology
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Factors that facilitate and hinder word recognition
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It is clear that sometimes repeating a word
facilitates recognition (priming), but other times repetition
hinders word recognition (repetition blindness). This dichotomy is
often observed in
repetition blindness. Alison Morris and I have used research
in this area to help us better
understand how words are represented in memory and how they are
recognized. Currently, we are working to extend
the repetition effects characteristic of repetition blindness to
those found in orthographic priming experiments. |
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Visual word recognition
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Word recognition models posit several theories for
how words are stored in memory and activated. There is some evidence
that words are treated differently than strings of nonsense letters.
Investigating the differences between the two can help identify the
special properties of words and pseudowords. I have researched this
with Alison Morris using repetition blindness, priming, and other
RSVP tasks. |
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A second area of interest
concerns the way in which letter order is coded. Although it has
long been an issue in the word recognition literature, it is only
within the last ten years that a significant amount of research has
been devoted to this issue. I have examined this issue using words
(e.g., jugde) and nonwords (e.g., prcuh) with transposed letters as
well as with priming studies using orthographic neighbors.
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| Semantic
Processing
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Several studies have indicated
that there may be at least two qualitatively different types of
semantic relationship: categorical relatedness (e.g., horse - dog)
and associative relations (e.g., cradle - baby). I have
investigated these relatedness effects using words and pictures. |
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Attention
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With so many things in the
environment, it is surprising that we remember any of it and even
more surprising that we can use that information. In order to
accomplish this, the brain must be able to selectively store
and later retrieve those items. It is thought that attention plays a
major role in these processes. I am interested in what
stimulus properties attract
attention (exogenous control) and how individuals direct their attention
(endogenous control).
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