Cognitive and Neural Systems

Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) is a newly formed area within the Department of Psychology, resulting from the integration of separate programs in Cognitive Psychology, Integrative Neuroscience (INS), and SensoriNeural and Perceptual Processes (SNAPP). The goal of this new program is to provide graduate students interested in the behavioral aspects of the cognitive and neuro sciences with broad and deep training in such research using both humans and other animals. Students will have an early common set of courses and then with their advisors design their own courses of study and research. The CNS faculty study cognition and neuroscience within human infants, human adults, and animals at multiple levels of analysis, ranging from in vivo and neuroimaging techniques to laboratory and computational modeling techniques.

Research topics among our faculty include neuroethology, auditory processes, sensorimotor integration, learning and memory, human judgment and decision making, attention, and human computer interaction. Moreover, members of the CNS group participate in the large and very active cognitive and neuroscience community on the University of Maryland College Park Campus. Our faculty members are among the 80+ members of the Neural and Cognitive Sciences Program (NACS) [http://www.nacs.umd.edu/], which is a multi-department, multi-college collaboration. We also have ongoing collaborative projects with researchers in other programs within Psychology, as well as within Biology, Electrical Engineering, Animal and Avian Sciences, Computer Science, and the Center for the Advanced Study of Language (CASL), to name only a few. Graduate students studying with CNS faculty enter through either the Department of Psychology or the NACS program (and in the latter case, have Psychology as their "home department.")

 

Research Topics

Cognitive Systems

• Learning and Memory
  
• Attention and Working Memory
• Judgment, Decision Making and Choice
  
• Risk perception and communication
  
• Social Perception and Cognition
  
• Theory of Mind
• Cognitive Development
  
• Human-Computer Interaction
  
• Intelligence

Neural Systems

• Learning and Memory
• Neuroethology
• Decision Making and Choice
• Neuromodulation
• Sensory processing
• Sensory-motor Integration
• Psychoacoustics and Auditory Processing
• Vocal learning
• Neurotransmitter systems
• Aggression

 

Cognitive and Neural Systems Faculty

Tracy DeBoer (Assistant Professor). The premise of my research program is how the development of interacting neural systems is related to cognition in both typically developing children and children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Specifically, through the use of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (both magnetic resonance imaging, MRI and event-related potentials, ERPs) my research explores the means through which brain development impacts cognitive processing in the domain of memory. I am interested in how a variety of early experiences influence the development of brain-behavior relations and result in individual differences in memory performance.

Representative Publications:

DeBoer, T., Miller, N. C., Bauer, P. J., Georgieff, M. K., & Nelson, C. A. (in press). Electrophysiological indices of memory for temporal order in early childhood: Implications for the development of recollection.

DeBoer, T., Scott, L.S., & Nelson, C.A. (2007). Methods for acquiring and
analyzing infant event-related potentials. In: Michelle de Haan (Ed.). Infant EEG and Event-Related Potentials. (pp. 5-37). New York: Psychology Press.

Richmond, J., & DeBoer T. (2006). Mechanisms of change: Exploring not only when and what, but how declarative memory develops. Infant and Child Development, 15, 207-210.

DeBoer, T., Wewerka, S., Bauer, P. J., Georgieff, M. K., & Nelson, C. A. (2005). Neurobehavioral sequelae of infants of diabetic mothers: Deficits in explicit memory at 1 year of age. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 47, 525-531.

DeBoer, T., Wu, Z., Lee, A., & Simon, T. J. (in press). Hippocampal volume reduction in children with Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome is associated with cognitive impairment. Behavioral and Brain Functions.

Steven Brauth (Professor). My research focuses on the following research questions in studying the neural underpinnings of auditory-vocal learning in budgerigars: 1) How does auditory information influence the vocal control system of the budgerigar? 2) How do budgerigars utilize contextual information in social situations to guide vocal learning? 3) How does the vocal control system develop in early life?

 

Thomas Carlson (Assistant Professor). My general research interests are in visual perception, object recognition and visual attention. Current research in my lab seeks to address the following questions: How do we recognize objects under natural viewing conditions? How are we able to dynamically track moving objects? And, how does he brain's representation of external objects interact with the brain's representation of external objects with the brain's representation of our body.

Website: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/mvsl/

Representative Publications:

Carlson, T. A., Alvarez, G. A., & Cavanagh, P. (2007). Quadrantic deficit reveals anatomical constraints on selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA , 104 (33), 13496-13500.

Carlson, T. A., Rauschenberger, R., & Verstraten, F. A. (2007). No representation without awareness in the lateral occipital cortex. Psychological Science, 18 (4), 298-302.

Carlson, T. A., Grol, M. J., & Verstraten, F. A. (2006). Dynamics of visual recognition revealed by fMRI. Neuroimage, 32 (2), 892-905.

Carlson, T. A., Hogendoorn, H., & Verstraten, F. A. (2006). The speed of
visual attention: What time is it? Journal of Vision, 6 (12), 1406-1411.

Robert Dooling (Professor). My research is aimed at understanding how animals communicate with one another using sound and whether there are parallels with how humans communicate with one another using speech and language. We have specific projects on vocal learning and vocal development in budgerigars, the regeneration of auditory hair cells and recovery of hearing and the vocalizations in small birds following hearing damage, and the effect of noise on hearing. Other studies focus on how small birds localize sounds, how they perceive complex sounds such as bird vocalizations and human speech, and how the bird ear functions.

Website: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/dooling/intro.htm

Representative Publications:

Dooling , R. J. and B. Lohr (2006). "Auditory temporal resolution in the Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata): A model of enhanced temporal acuity." The Ornithological Society of Japan, 5, 1-8.

Dooling, R. J., Ryals, B. M., Dent, M. L., and Reid, T. (2006). Recovery of Hearing and Vocal Behavior in Budgerigars after Hair Cell Regeneration. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 119, 2524-2532.

Larsen, O.N., Dooling, R.J., and Michelsen, A. (2006). The role of pressure difference reception in the directional hearing of budgerigars. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. [Epub ahead of print] doi:10.1007/s00359-006-0138-1.

Lauer, AM, Dooling, R.J., Leek, M.R., and Lentz, J.J. (2006). Phase effects in Masking by harmonic complexes in birds, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 1251-1259.

 

Michael Dougherty (Associate Professor). The bulk of my research is motivated by three general questions: 1) What are the cognitive processes underlying how people generate, test, and evaluate diagnostic hypotheses? 2) Can we build artificial intelligent / decision support systems that capitalize on the power of Bayesian induction and the information inherent in natural language? And 3) How can these models be scaled to serve as models of human induction in complex-dynamic tasks? Specific research projects range from examining the role of attention, working memory and long-term memory in judgment, hypothesis generation, and information search, to examining the relationship between various individual difference predictors of long-term memory retrieval and perceptions of risk. I am also a member of the Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences group.

Websites: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/dougherty/, www.thehygeneproject.org

Representative Publications:

Dougherty, M. R. & Sprenger, A. (2006). The influence of improper sets of information on judgment: How irrelevant information can bias judged probability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138, 262-281. (featured in APA Monitor, June 2006)

Dougherty, M. R. & Harbinson, J. I. (2007). Retrieval failure in memory: How long does one keep going back to the well when the well is dry? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition.

Dougherty, M. R., Franco-Watkins, A., & Thomas, R. P. (2008). The psychological plausibility of fast and frugal heuristics. To appear January, 2008, Psychological Review.

Thomas, R. P., Dougherty, M. R., Sprenger, A. M., & Harbison, J. I. (2008). Diagnostic hypothesis generation and human judgment. To appear January 2008, Psychological Review.

 

Paul Hanges (Professor and Assistant Chair). My research interests center on topics in (a) social cognition, leadership, and cross-cultural issues; (b) personnel selection, test fairness, and racial/gender discrimination; and (c) research methodology and computational modelling. Among my many research interests are the development of cognitive measures for personnel selection, the application of complexity theory to social networks and leadership, and cross-cultural differences in cognition. I'm also a member of the Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences area.

Website: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/hanges/

Representative Publications:

Dickson, M. W., Resick, C. J., & Hanges, P. J. (2006). When organizational climate is unambiguous, it is also strong. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 351-364.

Resick, C.J., Hanges, P.J., Dickson, M.W, & Mitchelson, J.K. (2006). A cross-cultural examination of the endorsement of ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 345-359.

Dickson, M.W., Resick, C.J., & Hanges, P.J. (2006). Universality and variation in organizationally-shared cognitive prototypes of effective leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 487-505.

Hanges , P.J. & Dickson, M.W. (2006). Agitation over Aggregation: Clarifying the Development of and the Nature of the GLOBE Scales. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 522-536.

Jens Herberholz (Assistant Professor). Research in my lab investigates the neural basis of animal behavior. We are interested in identifying and examining neural circuitry that controls behaviors such as aggression, social status, and escape from predators. We are especially interested in how the different escape circuits interact with each other to produce effective behavioral responses, and how social reality and/ or social experience affects behavior in crayfish and other invertebrates. In addition, we are currently using neuroimaging techniques to identify patterns of neural activity related to behavioral expression.

Website: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/Herberholz/

Representative Publications:

Herberholz J., C. McCurdy and D.H. Edwards (2007) Direct benefits of social dominance in juvenile crayfish. The Biological Bulletin 213: 21-27.

Herberholz J., C.J. Mims, X. Zhang, X. Hu and D.H. Edwards (2004) Anatomy of a live invertebrate revealed by manganese-enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The Journal of Experimental Biology 207: 4543-4550

Herberholz J., M.M. Sen and D.H. Edwards (2004) Escape behavior and escape circuit activation in juvenile crayfish during prey-predator interactions. The Journal of Experimental Biology 207: 1855-1863

Herberholz J., B.L. Antonsen and D.H. Edwards (2002) A lateral excitatory network in the escape circuit of crayfish. The Journal of Neuroscience 22 (20): 9078-9085

Herberholz J., F.A. Issa and D.H. Edwards (2001) Patterns of neural circuit activation and behavior during dominance hierarchy formation in freely behaving crayfish. The Journal of Neuroscience 21 (8): 2759-2767

 

William Hodos (Distinguished University Professor Emeritus). Although I have retired and no longer supervise graduate students, I still continue to teach graduate courses. My interests are in the evolution of the brain and behavior in vertebrates, comparative vertebrate neuroanatomy, human neuroanatomy, animal intelligence, and visual psychophysics and physiological optics, especially in birds.

Representative Publications:

He, H. Y., Hodos, W., and Quinlan E. M. (2006) Visual deprivation reactivates rapid ocular dominance plasticity in adult visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 2951-2955.

Ghim, M. M. and Hodos, W. (2006). Spatial contrast sensitivity of birds. Journal of Comparative Phsyiology, A., 92, 523-534.

Butler, A. B. and Hodos, W. (2005). Comparative Vertebrate Neuroanatomy: Evolution and Adaptation. 2nd Edition, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Liss.

Gaffney, W. and Hodos, W. (2003). The visual acuity and refractive state of the American kestrel (Falco sparverius). Vision Research, 43, 2053-2059.

 

Cynthia Moss (Professor). My research is directed at understanding auditory information processing and sensorimotor integration in vertebrates. Our work combines acoustical, psychophysical, perceptual, computational and neurophysiological studies, with the goal of developing integrative theories on brain-behavior relations in animal systems. Current behavioral studies focus on the processing of dynamic acoustic signals for the perception of auditory scenes. The aims of this work are to develop a broad understanding of complex signal processing in biological systems and to establish an empirical foundation for integrative models of spatial information processing, the perceptual organization of sound, and adaptive motor behaviors.

Website: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/batlab

Representative Publications:

Ulanovsky, N and Moss, C.F. Hippocampal cellular and network activity in freely-moving echolocating bats, Nature Neuroscience, 2007, 10(2): 224-233.

Sinha, S.R. and Moss, C.F. Vocal pre–motor activity in the superior colliculus, Journal of Neuroscience, 2007, 27(1): 98-110.

Moss, C.F., Bohn, K and Gilkenson, H. and Surlykke, A. Active listening for spatial orientation in a complex auditory scene. Public Library of Science Biology, 2006,4 (4): 615-626.

Ghose, K. Horiuchi, T.K., Krishnaprasad, P.S. and Moss, C.F. Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey. Public Library of Science Biology, 2006, 4 (5): 865-873.

 

Kent Norman (Associate Professor). My research interests include models of human judgment, decision making, human/computer interaction, problem solving, and aspects of art. Current research is on the cognitive aspects human/computer interaction, the development of a theory of cognitive control of computers using menu selection as a tool, design of Web-based surveys, and interfaces for information integration. I am also a member of the Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences group.

Website: www.lap.umd.edu

Representative Publications:

Norman, K. L. (2006). The self at the human/computer interface: A postmodern artifact in a different world. In P. C. Vitz & S. M. Felch (Eds.) The self: Beyond the postmodern crisis. Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Norman, K. L. (2004). Laboratory for Automation Psychology and Decision Processes: Lab Report. Cognitive Processes, 5, 193-196.

Norman, K. L., Panizzi, E. (2006). Levels of automation and user participation in usability testing. Interacting with Computers, 28, 246-264.

Norman, K. L. (expected publication Fall 2007). Cyberpsychology: An introduction to the psychology of human/computer interaction. Cambridge University Press.

 

Thomas Wallsten (Professor and chair). As a cognitive psychologist with a penchant for formal models, my long-standing research interests are in behavioral decision theory, including the areas of judgment, choice, probabilistic inference, and measurement. My research has both basic and applied components, and has the overall goal of developing useful, well-grounded cognitive theory and methods of analysis regarding processes of judgment and choice. As a senior scientist in the new University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, I am working with others on integrating research on judgment and related topics with research on issues of language processing. I am also a member of the Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences group.

Website: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/Wallsten/JDPLab/

Representative Publications:

Dhami, M. K. & Wallsten, T. S. (2005). Translating across Subjective Probability Lexicons. Memory and Cognition, 33, 1057-1068.

Wallsten, T. S., Pleskac, T. J., & Lejuez, C. W. (2005). Modeling behavior in a clinically diagnostic sequential risk-taking task. Psychological Review, 112, 862-880.

Pilcher, J. J., McClelland, L. E., Moore, D. D., Haarmann, H., Baron, J., Wallsten, T. S., McCubbin, J. A.. (2007). Language Performance under Sustained Work and Sleep Deprivation Conditions. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 78, B25-B38.

Bearden, J. N., Wallsten, T. S., and Fox, C. R. (2007). A stochastic model of subadditivity. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51, 229-241.

 

Amanda Woodward (Professor). My research explores the earliest stages of cognitive development and language acquisition. I am particularly interested in infants' abilities to make sense of other peoples’ actions, and the ways in which this ability contributes to language development. By early childhood, we have a well-organized system of knowledge, sometimes termed folk psychology, that guides our reasoning about and responses to the actions of people. In my research, I ask whether the seeds of these abilities are present in early infancy, and how this knowledge develops during the first year of life.

Website: www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/woodward/lab/index.html

Representative Publications:

Hamlin, J. K., Hallinan, E.V., & Woodward, A. L. (in press). Do as I do: 7-month-old infants selectively reproduce others' goals. Developmental Science.

Buresh, J. S. & Woodward, A. L. (2007). Infants track action goals within and across agents. Cognition.

Brune, C. W., & Woodward, A. L. (2007). Social cognition and social responsiveness in 10-month-old infants. Journal of Cognition and Development.

Sommerville, J. A., Woodward, A. L., & Needham, A. (2005). Action experience alters 3-month-old infants' perception of others' actions. Cognition, 96, B1–B11

Woodward, A. L. (2005). The infant origins of intentional understanding. In R. V. Kail (ed.) Advances in Child Development and Behavior, Volume 33 (pp. 229-262). Oxford: Elsevier.

 

David Yager (Professor). My research focuses on how the central nervous system processes auditory information to trigger and control behavior, especially predator avoidance behavior in praying mantises and tiger beetles. In addition, I also examine evolution of hearing in insects (BI). Neurophysiological projects in the lab have focused on several auditory interneurons and their role in processing and/or relaying information to the brain.