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COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE LAB              
                                                                                                

LAB ADDRESS     

Wilma Koutstaal
512-515 Elliott Hall, Department of Psychology                  
University of Minnesota                                                                     
75 East River Road
Minneapolis, MN  55455

Lab Telephone:  612-626-2174


STUDENTS AND PARTICIPANTS

Students interested in conducting research in our lab, including Directed Research Projects, should contact me via e-mail.

Directions to Elliott Hall

Directions to the Imaging Center


LAB RESEARCH

In our lab, we explore how we gain access to, and awareness of, what we know and remember, and the accuracy and confidence of our judgments associated with such access.  We also examine processes and factors that may either enhance, or impede, our ability to think in flexibly adaptive ways.

Experimental cognitive psychology research is conducted with various participant populations.  Our lab also uses neuroimaging techniques (fMRI) to examine the neuroanatomical correlates of memory encoding and retrieval in healthy young adults.

For a sampling of our lab's research see:  Recent Findings

For a list of published articles (each with abstracts) see:  Publications


PEOPLE AND PROJECTS

Post-doctoral Fellow

        Alaitz Aizpurua Sanz
        Project:  Thinking, perception, and memory in younger and older adults

Graduate Students

Rebecca Deason and Vaughn Steele
Project:  Abstract and specific object priming

Benjamin Denkinger
Project:  Object priming across tasks and object exemplars

Sara Kvidera
Project:  Confidence in perceptual versus conceptual decisions

Lily Sun (coordinator, working with Alana Feijo, Katie Pesch, and Andrea Rude)
Project:  Thoughts about words and objects

Undergraduate Students

Abby Dirks (co-ordinator, working with Mark Iris, Eve Shapiro, Aaron Whirley, and Khong Xiong)
Project:  Evaluating words or pictures

Matt Schwer
Project:  Flexible remembering and mood state (Honors thesis research)

Tae Yoon (working with Se-Jin Kim)
Project:  Confidence in perceptual vs. conceptual decisions (Honors thesis research)

UNIVERSITY OF READING, UK

We have several ongoing research projects and collaborations in my previous lab at the University of Reading in England, and these ongoing projects are listed here.

Dr. Laurie Butler (with Cynthia Hunter, Graduate Student, and Rebecca Kruc, Undergraduate Student)
Project:  Understanding the neural bases of repetition priming and mere exposure. 
(Research supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK.)

Tiffany Fu  (Graduate Student)
Project:  Depression and realism of confidence judgments. 
(In collaboration with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, University of London)

  M.Sc. Project:  Depression, confidence, and decision:  Evidence against depressive realism.  Abstract
  Ph.D. Project:  Affective states and accuracy of confidence assessments: 
                       A test of two competing hypotheses.  Abstract

Lesley Tranter (Post-doctoral Fellow)
Project:  Enhancing cognitive performance in normal cognitive aging:  Novelty, play, and plasticity.
(Research supported by the Office for Sponsored Research, UK.)  Abstract   Preprint of Article

Ming-Ching Wen (Graduate Student)
Project:  The impact of apathy and depression on problem-solving training in young and older adults

COLLABORATORS

Andrew Budson (Boston University School of Medicine)
Laurie Butler (University of Reading)
Anthony Cleare (Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London)
Rik Henson (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK)
Gordon Legge (University of Minnesota) with Allen Cheong (post-doc) and Tiana Bochsler (graduate student)
Chad Marsolek (University of Minnesota) with Rebecca Deason and Vaughn Steele (graduate students)
Daniel Schacter (Harvard University)
Jon Simons (Brain Imaging Unit, University of Cambridge)
Mieke Verfaellie (Boston University)



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