The Memory and Attention Laboratory at the University of South Dakota is part of the Human Factors program in the Department of Psychology. We study memory, attention, and multitasking in humans using behavioral experiments, eye tracking, pupillometry, and computational modeling. Our work informs current theories of how working memories are formed, the causes of forgetting, and the relationship between working memory and higher-order cognitive behavior.
News
The Lab Presents at Psychonomics (November 18, 2022)
Tim's talk on Friday: Feature Identity Drives Representation Format within Visual Working Memory
Kelly's poster on Friday: How does stress affect working memory consolidation?
Adaptive, brain computer interfaces for remote, multimodal inference Sharath Koorathota, M.S. Columbia University, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Abstract: Real-time monitoring of emotional state, helpful in improving patient outcomes, requires an understanding of the brain and body. In this talk, we focus on three aspects of real-time monitoring systems: integration of neurophysiological data, data streaming architectures to handle low-latency inference, and an experimental, closed-loop paradigm to infer emotional state from neural feedback. Specifically, we share results from attention modeling, shown to be accurate and fast for multimodal data analysis, and present preliminary results from a realistic, virtual reality experiment to study emotional state under visual uncertainty. Together, our contributions add to a growing understanding of the complex, brain-body system and in prediction of clinical outcomes through improving real-time emotional state detection.
Paper Published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications this week (July 2022)
In this collaboration with Dr. Sandry's lab at Montclair State University we use drift diffusion modeling to differentiate cognitive and motor slowing. This approach has interesting applications in human factors and understanding neurological disorders.
Sandry, J., & Ricker, T.J. (2022). Motor speed does not impact the drift rate: A computational hierarchical Drift Diffusion approach to differentiate cognitive and motor speed. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7, 66. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00412-7
Kelly Presents at the Virtual Working Memory Symposium (June 2022)
Kelly presented her work on working memory and mind wandering, during multitasking online. The gist, at first glance performance looks the same as in the lab, but the underlying cognitive processes are quite different.
Collaboration on Mathematical Models of MS Published (May 2022)
In this collaboration with Dr. Sandry's lab at Montclair State University we did some mathematical modeling to explore better ways of assessing cognitive decline in Multiple Sclerosis. We show a relationship between components of motor slowing and brain morphometry in MS patients:
Mui, M., Ruben, R., Ricker, T.J., Dobryankova, E., & Sandry, J. (in press). Ex-Gaussian analysis of simple response time and the relationship with brain morphometry in multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.
Paper Accepted for Publication this week (May 2022)
A collaboration with Evie Vergauwe arguing that cognitive load and standard interference approaches fail to adequately account dual-task memory disruption. Instead we propose a new enrichment account:
Ricker, T.J., & Vergauwe, E. (2022). Boundary conditions for observing cognitive load effects in visual working memory. Memory & Cognition, 1-17. doi:10.3758/s13421-022-01320-3
Congrats to Kristen Quigley for Graduating from USD with her B.S. in Neuroscience! (May 2022)
Kristen is moving on to pursue her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Nevada, Reno
Two New Papers Accepted for Publication this Week (March 2022)
Kelly's review of the relationship between working and long-term consolidation: Cotton, K. & Ricker, T.J. (2022). Examining the relationship between working memory consolidation and long-term memory consolidation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. And a collaboration with Dr. Karen Hebert in Occupational Therapy developing a scale to report emotional experiences in activities of daily living: Hebert, K.R. & Ricker, T.J. (2022). Reliability of the emotional experiences in activities of daily living scale (EEADLs). Occupational Therapy Journal of Research: Occupation, Participation and Health.