Our faculty publish cutting-edge research and teaching innovations in world's leading academic journals and publications. Browse a selection of featured publications below.
Behavioural Neuroscience
Directing Attention Shapes Learning in Adults But Not Children
Psychological Science (2024)
Marlie C. Tandoc, Bharat Nadendla. Theresa Pham, Amy S. Finn
Children sometimes learn distracting information better than adults do, perhaps because of the development of selective attention. To understand this potential link, we ask how the learning of children (aged 7–9 years) and the learning of adults differ when information is the directed focus of attention versus when it is not.
Although directing attention to the drawings improved learning in adults, children learned the drawings similarly across experiments regardless of whether the drawings were the focus of the task or entirely irrelevant.
Aesthetic Processing in Neurodiverse Populations
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2024)
Zach Buck, Everan Michalchyshyn, Amna Nishat, Mikayla Lisi, Yichen Huang, Hanyu Liu, Arina Makarenka, Charles Puttcharnun Plyngam, Abigail Windle, Zhen Yang, Dirk B. Walther
Neurodiversity is a perspective on cognition which suggests a non-pathological view of individual cognitive differences. Aesthetics research on neurodivergent brains has generally been limited to neuropsychological cases. Although this research has been integral to establishing the neurological correlates of aesthetic experience, it is crucial to expand this paradigm to more psychologically complex disorders.
We offer a review of research on aesthetic preference in neurodivergent brains beyond neuropsychological cases: across populations with psychotic disorder, anhedonia and depression, anxiety disorder, and autism.
The Directed Nature of Social Stereotypes
Journal of Personalist and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition (2024)
Oliver Sng, Minyoung Choi, Keelah E G Williams, Rebecca Neel
Stereotypes are strategically complex. We propose that people hold not just stereotypes about what groups are generally like (e.g., "men are competitive") but stereotypes about how groups behave toward specific groups (e.g., "men are competitive toward")—what we call directed stereotypes.
Across studies, directed stereotypes present unique patterns that both qualify and reverse well-documented stereotype patterns in the literature.
Developmental
Directing Attention Shapes Learning in Adults but Not Children
Psychological Science (2024)
Marlie C. Tandoc, Bharat Nadendla. Theresa Pham, Amy S. Finn
Children sometimes learn distracting information better than adults do, perhaps because of the development of selective attention. To understand this potential link, we ask how the learning of children (aged 7–9 years) and the learning of adults differ when information is the directed focus of attention versus when it is not.
Although directing attention to the drawings improved learning in adults, children learned the drawings similarly across experiments regardless of whether the drawings were the focus of the task or entirely irrelevant.
Aesthetic Processing in Neurodiverse Populations
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2024)
Zach Buck,Everan Michalchyshyn, Amna Nishat, Mikayla Lisi, Yichen Huang, Hanyu Liu, Arina Makarenka, Charles Puttcharnun Plyngam, Abigail Windle, Zhen Yang, Dirk B. Walther
Neurodiversity is a perspective on cognition which suggests a non-pathological view of individual cognitive differences. Aesthetics research on neurodivergent brains has generally been limited to neuropsychological cases. Although this research has been integral to establishing the neurological correlates of aesthetic experience, it is crucial to expand this paradigm to more psychologically complex disorders.
We offer a review of research on aesthetic preference in neurodivergent brains beyond neuropsychological cases: across populations with psychotic disorder, anhedonia and depression, anxiety disorder, and autism.
The Directed Nature of Social Stereotypes
Journal of Personalist and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition (2024)
Oliver Sng, Minyoung Choi, Keelah E G Williams, Rebecca Neel
Stereotypes are strategically complex. We propose that people hold not just stereotypes about what groups are generally like (e.g., "men are competitive") but stereotypes about how groups behave toward specific groups (e.g., "men are competitive toward")—what we call directed stereotypes.
Across studies, directed stereotypes present unique patterns that both qualify and reverse well-documented stereotype patterns in the literature.