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What we are up to and how you can be involved
See below for a list and descriptions of current projects in the CNSL lab. Currently, one graduate student and a number of undergraduate students are involved in these projects (typically earning course credit, PSY 433). If you are interested in joining the lab as a student, either undergraduate or graduate, please contact me at rwwiley at uncg dot edu about your interests. I am currently recruiting for a funded doctoral student to join the lab, beginning in the 2023-2024 academic year. General information about the application process can be found here. See the publications page here for more examples of recent and current work in the lab.
- Active funding sources:
(1) National Science Foundation
“When and from whom reminder-based corrections of everyday misinformation improves memory and belief accuracy.” NSF Standard Grant. Role: Co-I. $450,000.
(2) Therapeutic Cognitive Neuroscience Fund
Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Role: Local PI. $186,555.
- Current CNSL lab projects:
(1) Sublexical Representations in Written Language
We are investigating a number of questions about the nature of sublexical knowledge–when we learn to read and write in alphabetic languages, what do we learn about how letters and sound relate to each other? How do people differ in this knowledge? How can better understanding how this knowledge is represented in the mind/brain contribute to practices in teaching?
Sub-projects:
- individual differences in sublexical and lexical knowledge in neurotypical adults: project led by current graduate student Kristin Key. How can we account for the variability of responses in pseudoword spelling-to-dictation? Do individuals with better lexical knowledge (accurate spelling of real words) differ in how they spell pseudowords? What are the contributions of individual differences in both sublexical and lexical knowledge to the ability to learn the spelling of new words? Work presented at the American Educational Research Association 2022 conference in San Diego.
- The PG Toolkit: we are finalizing version 1.0 of an Excel workbook that provides the probability of phoneme-grapheme mappings, in both directions (reading and spelling), for any real word, misspelling, or pseudoword. Validation of our measures on empirical behavioral data confirm that they are as-good-as or better than other existing measures of spelling plausibility/regularity, and lends support to the theoretical bases from which the measures are derived. Work presented at the 2022 International Workshop of Language Production in Pittsburgh.
(2) The Cognitive and Neural Bases of Word Learning in Aging
In this 3-year project (2022-2025), we will be looking at the cognitive mechanisms that support word learning, the neural substrates that underlie those mechanisms, and how they are affected by healthy aging (e.g., how they differ compared to younger adults). This project involves longitudinal study (a training study) of both younger and adult adults, collecting behavioral data as they learn new words in the lab setting, with neural outcome measures at multiple time points (structural and functional MRI).
- Ongoing collaborations with other labs:
- Highly Selective Difficulties in Learning Word Spellings in Developmental Dysgraphia: collaborators = Dr. Brenda Rapp and Dr. Michael McCloskey, Johns Hopkins University. A case series of three individuals with development dysgraphia without dyslexia. Work presented at the 2022 International Workshop on Language Production, submitted for 2023 American Educational Research Association conference in Chicago.
- A Novel Approach to Measuring Neural Tuning to Written Words: collaborators = Dr. Jeremy Purcell and Dr. Donald Bolger, University of Maryland; Dr. William Graves, Rutgers University. In an effort to build on approaches that consider neural signal variability and multivariate measures, we are investigating a novel approach that quantifies the multivariate response of fMRI signal variability, thereby developing a metric well-suited to quantify individual differences in reading behavior. Incorporates measures being developed for the PG Toolkit (see above).
- When and from whom reminder-based corrections of everyday misinformation improves memory and belief accuracy: collaborators = Dr. Christopher Wahlheim and Dr. Andrew Engelhardt, University of North Carolina Greensboro. A multi-year, cross-disciplinary (cognitive psychology + political science) investigation of factors contributing to updating memory and beliefs for (mis)information. In particular, the CNSL lab is focused on aim 2: the effects of modality (e.g., visual, auditory) on reminder-based corrections of misinformation.
- Treatment of temporal processing components in acquired anomia (naming deficits post-stroke): collaborators = Dr. Jessica Obermeyer, University of North Carolina Greensboro, and Dr. Nadine Martin, Temple University. Case series studies of individuals with aphasia, in particular those who show temporal effects in their ability to name objects (i.e., performance in naming objects improves or declines as time passes after presentation of the object), and a treatment protocol based on the Semantic-Phonological model of lexical access (of Nadine Martin, Gary Dell, and colleagues).