Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education

Research in our lab focuses primarily on topics related to Cognitive Neuropsychology. Cognition refers to the study of basic mental processes (e.g., perception, attention, memory, and language), while Neuropsychology refers to how mental processes are represented in the brain. Our research at U.T. concentrates on how different cognitive processes are localized to the left versus right cerebral hemispheres of the brain. A related topic of inquiry concerns differences between left- and right-handers in terms of the interaction of processing between the two sides of the brain (with left-handers being better able to integrate left and right hemisphere processing and right-handers being better at keeping left and right hemisphere processing separate and independent). Examples of current research in our lab include:

• the role of eye movements and cortical activation in the retrieval of autobiographical memories, with a special emphasis on implications for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a popular but controversial therapeutic technique for patients with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• differences between the left versus right hemisphere in the processing of perceptual information, including high versus low spatial frequency, categorical versus coordinate representations, and local versus global levels of structure
• differences between left- and right-handers in various cognitive processes, including memory, dissociative experiences, humor, and sarcasm
• applications of nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory to timing differences between the left and right hands during fingertapping
• the relationship between left-right visual field differences and upper-lower visual field differences