News
September 15, 2023. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Krasich, K., O'Neill, K. O., Murray, S., Brockmole, J. R., De Brigard, F., & Nuthmann, A. (in press). A computational modeling approach to investigating mind wandering-related adjustments to gaze behavior during scene viewing. Cognition.
March 28, 2023. All But Dissertation:
Graduate Student Adam Vilanova-Goldstein has successfully proposed his dissertation entitled "The Effects of Agency on Selective Attention and Control."
January 18, 2023. Tenure-Track Job Placements:
Two former graduate students have accepted tenure-track assistant professor positions. Andrew Clement (Ph.D., 2018) will be heading to Millsaps College after completing post-doc fellowships at the University of Toronto (with Jay Pratt) and Texas A&M (with Brian Anderson). Kristina Krasich (Ph.D., 2019) is taking up her post at Elon University following a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke (with Felipe De Brigard). Congratulations Professor Clement and Professor Krasich!
July 17, 2022. Awards for Lab Alumni:
Former post-doc Greg Huffman and former collaborating graduate student LCDR Adam Biggs are among a group of researchers at the Naval Health Research Center who have received the APA Division 19 (Military Psychology) Charles S. Gersoni MIlitary Psychology Award. As noted by USMC LTG Kevin IIames, "No research team has ever produced such a robust, evidence-based, and completed solution to support infantry marksmanship as the efforts spearheaded by the NHRC team." Division 19 has also awarded Adam Biggs the Arthur W. Melton Early Achievement Award. Congratulations Greg and Adam!
May 5, 2022. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Vilanova-Goldstein, A., C., Huffman, G., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Interactions among endogenous, exogenous, and agency-driven attentional selection mechanisms in interactive displays. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. This is Adam's first peer-reviewed publication. Congratulations Adam!
April 14, 2022. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Li, T., Quintero, M., Galvan, M., Shanafelt, S., Hasty, L. M., Spangler, D. P., Lyons, I. M., Mazzocco, M. M. M., Brockmole, J. R., Hart, S. A., & Wang, Z. (in press). The mediating role of attention in the association between math anxiety and math performance: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Educational Psychology.
December 10, 2021. New Grant Examining Art and Understanding:
James Brockmole, GA Radvansky (Psychology), and Robin Jensen (Theology) have been awarded a $1 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to support an 36-month project entitled "Assessing the Impact of Sacred Art on Individual Experience, Memory, and Spiritual Understanding." This project will address several questions. How does an encounter with sacred art influence one’s experience, understanding, and memory of it? Does experience, understanding, and memory of sacred art differ from that of secular artworks? Why does experience, understanding, and memory of representational art differ from abstract artworks? What are the emotional impacts of sacred artworks, both in the immediate experience and subsequent memory for that experience? How is understanding and memory of sacred artworks affected by immersive spatial and temporal contexts? How is sacred art understood and remembered as a consequence of the event structure in which it is embedded? And, how do people vary in their understanding of sacred art?
May 22, 2021. Commencement Weekend:
Congratulations to our graduating students. Undergraduate research assistants Emily Tighe and Kelly White received their bachelors degrees and graduate students Sean Dageforde and Adam Vilanova-Goldstein received their masters degrees (en route to their Ph.D.s).
May 3, 2021. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Krasich, K., Kim, J., Huffman, G., Klaffehn, A. L., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Does task-irrelevant music affect gaze allocation during real-world scene viewing? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
April 15, 2021. Graduate School Acceptance:
Senior thesis student Emily Tighe has accepted an offer of graduate admission from the University of Utah where she will pursue a Ph.D. under the direction of Prof. Jeanine Stefanucci and Prof. Sarah Creem-Regehr.
April 1, 2021. Successful Master's Defense:
Sean Dageforde successfully defended his master's thesis entitled "The Role of Loss in Value Based Attentional Selection." Congratulations Sean!
February 5, 2021. Successful Master's Defense:
Adam Vilanova-Goldstein successfully defended his master's thesis entitled "Agency-Driven Biases in Visual Selective Attention." Congratulations Adam!
December 19, 2020. On the Tenure Track:
Former undergraduate and senior thesis student Deborah Cronin has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Drake University. Deborah will begin work at Drake in August 2021.
August 4, 2020. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Krasich, K., Huffman, G., Faber, M., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Where the eyes wander: The relationship between mind wandering and fixation allocation to visually salient and semantically informative static scene content. Journal of Vision.
May 17, 2020. Commencement Weekend:
Congratulations to undergraduate research assistant Emilio Arellano who graduated from Notre Dame this weekend.
March 10, 2020. New Interdisciplinary Grant:
James Brockmole, GA Radvansky (Psychology), and Robin Jensen (Theology) have been awarded a $230,620 grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to support an 18-month project entitled "Understanding the Enduring Impact of Encounters with Sacred Art on Individual Spiritual Reality." This project focuses on the ways in which people extract meaning from works of art. The main objective is to use the theories and methodologies of visual and event cognition to study the immediate and enduring elements of one’s encounters with works of sacred art. We aim to discover how participants look at and then remember art, and how these processes are impacted by an individual’s circumstances and attitudes as well as the artwork’s immediate context or broader environment. Joseph Becherer (Snite Museum), Erika Doss (American Studies), and Maria Tomasula (Art, Art History, and Design) are consultants on the project.
March 9, 2020. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Clement, A., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Updating perception and action across real-world viewpoint changes. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
February 28, 2020. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Faber, M., Krasich, K., Bixler, R. E., Brockmole, J. R., & D'Mello, S. K. (in press). The eye-mind wandering link: Identifying Gaze indices of mind wandering across tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
February 18, 2020. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Huffman, G., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Attentional selection is biased towards controllable stimuli. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
October 27, 2019. New Job Placement:
Post-Doctoral Fellow Greg Huffman has accepted a new position as Research Scientist at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, CA.
July 18, 2019. James Brockmole Named Editor-in-Chief:
Prof. Brockmole has been named incoming Editor-in-Chief of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. His term begins January 1, 2020. He hopes labs everywhere are preparing to send their best work to the journal after the new year.
July 1, 2019. Welcome New Graduate Students:
The Visual Cognition Lab is pleased to welcome two new graduate students. Adam Goldstein comes from Carly Leonard's lab at UC-Denver and Sean Dageford comes from Mike Dodd's lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Welcome to the VCL team!
May 28, 2019. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Stothart, C., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). “Satisfaction” in Search: Individuals’ Own Search Expectations Predict Their Errors in Multiple-Target Search. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
May 19, 2019. Commencement Weekend:
Congratulations to undergraduate research assistants Joanne Kim, Claire Kuehn, Angela Lim, Erin Sullivan and to Ph.D. student Kristina Krasich who all graduated from Notre Dame this weekend.
March 27, 2019. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Clement, A., O'Donnell, R. E., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). The Functional Arrangement of Objects Bias Gaze Direction. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
March 21, 2019. Successful Doctoral Defense:
Graduate Student Kristina Krasich has successfully defended her dissertation entitled "The Effects of Mind Wandering on Gaze Control". Congratulations Dr. Krasich!
March 9, 2019. New Post-Doc Placement:
Graduate student Kristina Krasich has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience where she will be mentored by Prof. Felipe De Brigard.
March 2, 2019. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Davoli, C. C., O'Rear, C. D., McAulay, E., McNeil, N. M., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Hand position affects performance on multiplication tasks. Journal of Numerical Cognition.
February 4, 2019. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Hutt, S., Krasich, K., Mills, C., Bosch, N., White, S., Brockmole, J. R., D'Mello, S. K. (in press). Automated gaze-based mind wandering detection during computerized learning in classrooms. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction.
September 4, 2018. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant Awarded:
Senior thesis student, Joanne Kim, a dual Neuroscience & Behavior and Music major, has received an $1,800 grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts to support her project entitled "The Influence of Music on Gaze Control."
July 26, 2018. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Krasich, K., Biggs, A. T., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Attention capture during visual search: The consequences of distractor appeal, familiarity, and frequency . Visual Cognition. This paper will appear in an upcoming special issue Dealing with Distractors edited by Shaun Vecera, Nick Gaspelin, and Chris Olivers.
July 1, 2018. New Post-Doc Welcome:
The lab is very pleased to welcome Dr. Greg Huffman as a post-doctoral fellow. Greg comes to us from the University of Toronto and is interested in how cognition and action interact with each other and allow humans to successfully act within the environment. Learn more about Greg's research here.
June 11, 2018. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Clement, A., Stothart, C., Drew, T., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Semantic associations do not modulate the visual awareness of objects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
June 1, 2018. Moving Day:
The Visual Cognition Lab (along with the entire Department of Psychology) has moved from Haggar Hall to our new purpose-built home in Corbett Family Hall. You can find us in room 548.
May 20, 2018. Commencement Weekend:
Congratulations to undergraduate research assistants Gabriella Adams, Kathryn Kehoe, Kathryn Tighe and to Ph.D. student Andrew Clement who all graduated from Notre Dame this weekend.
April 23, 2018. All But Dissertation:
Graduate Student Kristina Krasich has successfully proposed her dissertation entitled "The Effects of Mind Wandering on Gaze Control."
February 23, 2018. Successful Doctoral Defense:
Graduate Student Andrew Clement has successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Updating Perception and Action Across Real-World Viewpoint Changes". Congratulations Dr. Clement!
February 12, 2018. New Post-Doc Placement:
Graduate Student Andrew Clement has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof Jay Pratt at the University of Toronto.
January 18, 2018. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Krasich, K., McManus, R., Hutt, S., Faber, M., D'Mello, S. K., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Gaze-based signatures of mind wandering during real-world scene processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Portions of this work constituted a senior thesis by Bobby McManus in the Visual Cognition Lab.
December 4, 2017. Former Senior Thesis Student Becomes a Post-Doc:
Former senior thesis student Deborah Cronin, who is finishing her graduate work at UIUC with Prof. David Irwin, has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at UC-Davis where she will work with Prof. John Henderson.
October 16, 2017. New Job Placement:
Post-Doctoral Fellow Cary Stothart has started a new position as Research Psychologist at the US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in Forth Leavenworth, KS.
September 28, 2017. From Senior Thesis to Peer-Reviewed Publication:
O'Donnell, R. E., Clement, A., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Semantic and functional relationships among objects increase the capacity of visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
August 28, 2017. On the Tenure Track:
Former post-doc Michi Matsukura has started a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Drake University.
August 2, 2017. New Grant:
Led by psychology graduate student Kristina Krasich and philosophy graduate student Samuel Murray, the lab has received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to study the behavioral and neurological link between mind wandering and prospective memory.
July 31, 2017. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Clement, A., Randvansky, G. A., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Compression of environmental representations following interactions with objects. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
July 12, 2017. Best Student Paper Award:
Congratulations to graduate student Kristina Krasich who, along with D'Mello Lab graduate students Stephen Hutt, Nigel Bosch, and Caitlin Mills, have won the James Chen Best Student Paper Award at the 2017 Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (UMAP)
May 8, 2017. Faculty Honors:
Prof. Brockmole has been appointed to the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Collegiate Chair in recognition of his achievements as "as a scholar, teacher, and citizen of the University."
April 29, 2017. Undergraduate Student Achievement Award:
Senior thesis student Caitlin Sisk has won the John F. Santos Award for most outstanding graduating psychology major.
April 25, 2017. Graduate Student Teaching Award:
Kristina Krasich has been awarded the Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award from the Department of Psychology for her work as instructor-of-record for Introduction to Biopsychology.
April 24, 2017. New Paper Accepted for Publication:
Stothart, C., Clement, A., & Brockmole, J. R. (in press). Satisfaction in motion: Subsequent search misses are more likely in moving search displays. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
April 1, 2017. Graduate School Acceptance:
Senior thesis student Caitlin Sisk has accepted an offer of graduate admission from the University of Minnesota where she will pursue a Ph.D. under the direction of Prof. Yuhong Jiang.
March 18, 2017. Graduate School Acceptance:
Senior thesis student Ryan O'Donnell has accepted an offer of graduate admission from Pennsylvania State University where he will pursue a Ph.D. under the direction of Prof. Brad Wyble.
February 8, 2017. Graduate Student Fellowship:
Kristina Krasich has been awarded a fellowship from Duke University/Templeton Foundation to attend the Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP). The fellowship also includes research support for a year-long project on mind wandering.
January 1, 2017. News Page:
Great things are happening all the time in the Visual Cognition Lab and we need to brag a little. We'll be posting exciting news as it happens on this new web page.