In August 2022, Tom stepped up to become Director of Graduate Studies for the third time for what was supposed to be a three-year term. With Tim McNamara moving from department chair to interim dean of the College of Arts and Science, Tom was asked to step into the role of Chair of the Department of Psychology for a three-year term beginning in July 2023.
Read MoreCongratulations to Jason for winning the 2023 Pat Burns Memorial Graduate Student Research Award.
Pat Burns touched generations of doctoral students during her nearly four decades of service to Vanderbilt University. In memory of her tireless efforts to help guide our students through all phases of their graduate education, the Department of Psychology establishes a Graduate Student Research Award to recognize outstanding achievement in research by our most outstanding graduate students. The recipient receives a plaque and a $500 award.
Jason was recognized for his outstanding research. His nomination noted that “Jason is exceptionally creative and talented”. “He has breadth and depth, a great collaborator, writer and teacher, and a very productive graduate student”. “He will certainly make this program proud for years and years to come.”
Congratulations Jason!
Read MoreAn article titled “Yes, Birding Does Change Your Brain” appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of Audubon Magazine:
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/spring-2023/yes-birding-does-change-your-brain
Read MoreAmirsaman Sajad joined the collaboration with Gordon Logan and Jeffrey Schall as a Research Assistant Professor in December 2022. Amir did his PhD in Toronto and did postdoctoral work in primate neurophysiology at Vanderbilt. His recent work has focused on dissecting the neural circuitry serving performance monitoring and adaptive behavior, and on linking this to non-invasive electrophysiological biomarkers. He joined the collaboration to extend his computational expertise and integrate decision-making modeling with models of performance monitoring and cognitive control. His scientific mission is to discover the building blocks of cognition and their biomarkers and translate this knowledge to real-world applications.
Read MoreOur major new theoretical paper has been accepted for publication in Psychological Review: Cox, G.E., Palmeri, T.J., Logan, G.D., Smith, P.L., Schall, J.D. (in press). Salience by competitive and recurrent interactions: Bridging neural spiking and computation in visual attention. Psychological Review. PsyArXiv: https://psyarxiv.com/rkh8g/
Decisions about where to move the eyes depend on neurons in Frontal Eye Field (FEF). Movement neurons in FEF accumulate salience evidence derived from FEF visual neurons to select the location of a saccade target among distractors. How visual neurons achieve this salience representation is unknown. We present a neuro-computational model of target selection called Salience by Competitive and Recurrent Interactions (SCRI), based on the Competitive Interaction model of attentional selection and decision making (Smith & Sewell, 2013). SCRI selects targets by synthesizing localization and identification information to yield a dynamically evolving representation of salience across the visual field. SCRI accounts for neural spiking of individual FEF visual neurons, explaining idiosyncratic differences in neural dynamics with specific parameters. Many visual neurons resolve the competition between search items through feedforward inhibition between signals representing different search items, some also require lateral inhibition, and many act as recurrent gates to modulate the incoming flow of information about stimulus identity. SCRI was tested further by using simulated spiking representations of visual salience as input to the Gated Accumulator Model of FEF movement neurons (Purcell et al., 2010; Purcell, Schall, Logan, & Palmeri, 2012). Predicted saccade response times fit those observed for search arrays of different set size and different target-distractor similarity, and accumulator trajectories replicated movement neuron discharge rates. These findings offer new insights into visual decision making through converging neuro-computational constraints and provide a novel computational account of the diversity of FEF visual neurons.
Read MoreCox, G.E., Palmeri, T.J., Logan, G.D., Smith, P.L., & Schall, J.D. (in press). Spiking, salience, and saccades: Using cognitive models to bridge the gap between “how” and “why”. In B. Forstmann & B.M. Turner (Eds.), An Introduction to Model-Based Cognitive Neuroscience (2nd Ed.), Springer Neuroscience.
Chow, J.K., Palmeri, T.J., Mack, M.L. (in press). Revealing a competitive dynamic in rapid categorization with object substitution masking. Attention, Perception, & Performance.
Carrigan, A.J., Charlton, A., Wiggins, M.W., Georgiou, A., Palmeri, T.J., & Curby, K.M. (in press). Cue utilisation reduces the impact of response bias in histopathology. Applied Ergonomics.
Chow, J.K., Palmeri, T.J., Gauthier, I. (in press). Haptic object recognition based on shape relates to visual object recognition ability. Psychological Research.
Chow, J.K., Palmeri, T.J., Gauthier, I. (in press). Visual object recognition ability is not related to experience with visual arts. Journal of Vision.
Carrigan, A.J., Charlton, A., Foucar, E., Wiggins, M., Georgiou, A., Palmeri, T.J., & Curby, K. (in press). The role of cue based strategies in skilled diagnosis amongst pathologists. Human Factors.
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