In natural language, evidence suggests that, while some rules are productive (regular), applying broadly to new words, others are restricted to a specific set of lexical items (irregular). Further, the literature suggests ...

This dissertation examines how attention and emotion interact in early visual processing across typical development and in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). To investigate early visual processing, we utilized ...

Although spoken word recognition is more fundamental to human communication than text recognition, knowledge of word-processing in auditory cortex is comparatively impoverished. This dissertation synthesizes current models ...

Working memory is involved in numerous areas of cognition. It has been studied using various tasks, in which cognitive performance and brain activation have been measured. Working memory depends largely on dopamine ...

Perceptual learning of visual categorization has been described as a two-stage model, wherein the tuning of representations in visual areas is sharpened to the physical attributes of the stimuli and dorsolateral prefrontal ...

Music cognition researchers have proposed a relationship between the perception of unexpected harmonic events and preference in music. The brain strategies underlying this relationship, however, have not been substantially ...

Delivery of building blocks essential for brain development is critical for the normal development of the brain and behavior. Omega-3 (N3) fatty acids are essential nutrients, which can only be obtained from the diet. ...

Adolescence is a time of exploration, but also risk taking, such as alcohol use. What places individuals’ at risk has not been fully elucidated. Twin studies of adult alcohol use disorders (AUD’s) found genetics account ...

Reading relies on at least partially dissociable sub-word (sublexical) and word-specific (lexical) processes, which are subserved by somewhat separable neural substrates. Beyond this broad dissociation between sublexical ...

Perceiving and comprehending spoken language is a complex process, but for most of us, it is something we do effortlessly. How does the brain transform the acoustic and visual signals of speech into meaningful percepts? ...