Cognition and Language: Research

	Geoffrey Underwood's work continues to investigate the role of visual attention in skilled performance, using eye-tracking techniques that have been developed at Nottingham. As skills develop in readers, musicians, and drivers their fixation patterns change - part of this development follows from the recognition of frequently occurring patterns, and part of it is associated with the active search for salient information as knowledge of the domain changes.
	Peter Chapman's research focuses on interactions between memory, attention and emotion. Current work is exploring distortions in memory such as differential memory for central and peripheral information, boundary extension, suggestibility, and misinformation. In each case these distinctions are being explored in the context of stressful or emotional situations.
	David Crundall's work is concerned with visual attention, its functions and applications. Topics of interest include how attention selects objects in abstract and real world scenes, and how selected stimuli are processed.
	Richard Tunney's work examines a) episodic memory models of learning and categorization; and b) somatic and utility based models of decision-making.
	Walter van Heuven's research focuses on bilingual language processing, computational models of language processing, and neuroimaging studies of the bilingual brain. Current work investigates word recognition in monolinguals and bilinguals (e.g., Chinese-English), and language conflict in the bilingual brain.
	Jonathan Stirk
	Alastair Smith's research investigates spatial processing at a variety of scales. This includes the study of drawing production and the processes that support it, search behaviour, and large-scale navigation. These functions are studied in both typical and atypical (e.g. neurological patients, genetic deletion) populations.
	Ruth Filik’s research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language comprehension, in particular, the interplay between a readers’ knowledge of the world and the content of the text. Specific interests include; the processing of anomalies, the interpretation of quantified statements, the computation of reference relations, and the comprehension of figurative language. She is also interested in applied aspects of language processing, such as the labelling of medicines.

PhD projects

	Kate Bailey
	Marie-Josee Bisson
	Emily Coderre
	Andrew Kelly
	Fadhel Khashawi
	Timothy Mullet
	David Stillwell
	Taoli Zhang

Last updated: 26/1/11