Psychology

Associate-In: PSYC 144 Memory & Amnesia

Personal Blog, Psychology, Teaching & Talks, UC San Diego

With my name officially on the registrar, I’m happy to announce that I’m teaching a 300-person, upper-division undergraduate course during the Winter 2023 quarter! I’ve accepted an “associate-in-lieu” position in the Department of Psychology at UCSD.

The course is PSYC 144 Memory & Amnesia. The course will review basic research into the nature of memory. It will survey current research and theory concerning human memory and amnesia from both cognitive and neuropsychological perspectives. Topics covered will include short-term memory, encoding and retrieval processes, forgetting, memory distortion, implicit memory, drug effects on memory, amnesic syndromes, and the effects of aging on memory processes.

Advancement to Candidacy

Personal Blog, Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

I’m incredibly proud to report that I recently advanced to candidacy! In our department, that means passing a qualifying paper defense (which I did in July 2020) as well as successfully “defending” a dissertation proposal paper and presentation.

My dissertation, “Evidence of Innocence: The Psychology of Lineup Rejections,” will comprise of three published or to-be-published studies. The first study was published in Law and Human Behavior earlier this year. The second and third studies will be basic-science studies investigating 1) why the confidence-accuracy relationship for lineup rejections ranges from negligible to slightly-positive and 2) the specific decision variable that is used for confidence during a lineup rejection.

Thank you to my committee: Drs. John Wixted (Chair), Tim Brady, Uma Karmarkar, John Serences, and Angela Yu.

 

The Reveal Procedure: Enhancing Evidence of Innocence from Police Lineups

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Law and Human Behavior chose to highlight a recent paper of mine in their “Research Highlight” series. The paper explores the viability of new police lineup procedure — a “Reveal” procedure — that enhances evidence of suspect innocence in a police lineup. (Lineups are typically designed to gather information about a suspect’s guilt.) This exploration was done using signal-detection-based model of eyewitness memory. LHB created a nifty graphic in their tweet below that explains what the paper is about, whom the paper is for, and why the paper is important. (Links to the original tweet and paper are below if the embed ever fails.)

 

 

View the original tweet.

 Read the paper in full.

 

 

 

Presenting: Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2022)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

I will be presenting a flash talk at CogSci 2022! The talk is entitled: “Decision Variables in the Case of Police Lineup Rejections.” If you’re interested in learning about the decision rules which participants may use when rejecting a set of stimuli for a recognition memory task, come on by. The 4-5 minute talk will be uploaded virtually for those not going to the in-person conference in Toronto, Canada.

This poster will presented live during the Decision Making 3 session (1:50-2:35pm EST). If you miss the presentation, slides will be posted on the conference website, but a recording will not be available. 

Presenting: Vision Sciences Society (Virtual)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

This June, I’ll be presenting  “A comparison between a rate-them-all simultaneous lineup procedure vs. standard simultaneous and show-up procedures” as a virtual poster at V-VSS.

The conference date is June 1-2nd. The poster will be presented in Poster Session 5 on Thursday, June 2nd at 7-9am (PDT).

ESRC Festival of Social Science (Seminar)

Psychology

Tomorrow, Nov. 16 @ 10am PST, I’ll be attending “Eyewitness Identification from a Different Angle,” a seminar part of the greater ESRC Festival of Social Science hosted by the University of Birmingham in the UK. The seminar hosts an all-star panel of researchers prominent in the fields of facial recognition and memory.

For those interested in eyewitness memory from a basic science perspective, I recommend attending! The event is free and open to the public, and will most certainly contain interesting discourse in the Q&A portion. The Q&A is live, but some prerecorded talks are available for viewing at the link above.

Speakers and Panelists:

Continue reading →

Presenting: Psychonomic Society 62nd Annual Meeting

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

I will present the poster “The Psychology and Neuroscience of Confidence in Memory and Perception” at Psychonomic Society’s annual convention. This poster (2427) is based on an expansion of my qualifying paper, and will be co-authored between myself and Dr. John T. Wixted.

This year’s meeting will take place on November 4-7. I will be available for live discussion within the meeting platform on November 6th, 12-1pm Central Time. Or, as always, contact me with any questions.

Abstract:

The solution to real-world problems often requires a deep, basic-science understanding of the problem at hand. Confidence and decision time are issues that matter in the real-world and have been intensively investigated in the past 20 years in both psychological science and neuroscience. In cognitive psychology, confidence is usually conceptualized in terms of signal detection theory while speeded decision-making is conceptualized in terms of evidence accumulation modeling. However, no singular model of confidence for a perceptual decision dominates. In mathematical psychology, accounts of speeded decision-making in terms of a balance-of-evidence decision variable has gained currency in recent years. In neuroscience, the field tends to approach evidence accumulation and confidence in relation to lateral intraparietal cortex (the role of which is debated) and reaction time, with some research indicating a balance-of-evidence decision variable. A review of these largely independent lines of research suggests a potentially fruitful way to naturally integrate signal detection theory and evidence accumulation models in a way that comports with the relevant neuroscience evidence.

Update: The abstract number was previously 5117. Renumbering occurred when this year’s annual convention moved from a hybrid format to strictly online. You can view a PDF of the poster here.

Presenting: APS Annual Convention (Virtual)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Tomorrow is the first day of APS Virtual! I’ll be presenting the poster, “Enhancing Evidence of Innocence from Police Lineups,” which you can find here. You will need to login to APS in order to access it. 

Additionally, I’ll be leading a Hot Topic Discussion on Memory in Forensics. I’m excited to see what ideas other APS members bring to the 30-minute discussion on the state of the field, where it’s going, and what questions we hope to be answered in the future. On a personal note, it’s super cool seeing my name listed as a speaker and being able to engage with other attendees in a live-session. This is my first time engaging with the APS research community in a manner other than a poster.

Resources: Pathways to Ph.D panel

Psychology, Resources, UC San Diego

During UCSD’s Pathways to Ph.D event, some of the panelists shared resources which helped them navigate the graduate school application process.

  • UCSD’s Psychology Department has an “Applying to Graduate Programs” webpage. This webpage contains information on: how much time to set aside for applications, when to consider applying to graduate school, additional links / resources / downloadable forms, and information about choosing programs / advisers / schools and making one’s application competitive. This webpage is tailored to people interested in research programs in psychology, but much of it can be applied to other disciplines.
  • UCSD’s Career Center has a “Get into Grad School” page. They provide important academic resources as well as questions you should ask yourself before choosing a program.
  • Colors of the Brain is a UCSD-based program promoting diversity within the brain sciences. Their graduate mentors will review academic CVs and applications of undergraduate students looking to enter a graduate STEM field. All of the graduate mentors are first-generation or come from a historically underrepresented background. Also, Colors of the Brain can provide support and resources to students about life in STEM and/or graduate school in general.

Thank you to everyone who attended and to those who made this event possible.

Panelist: “Pathways to Ph.D”

Psychology, UC San Diego

This Wednesday (November 4th, 2020), I’ll be a graduate panelist for the “Pathways to Ph.D” event. This event is for undergraduate students who are hoping to apply to graduate school in Experimental Psychology, Neuroscience, and Clinical Psychology. The panel will discuss life of a graduate student, research, as well as how to approach the application process.

If you would like to attend, here is the form to RSVP!