Psychology > Graduate Programs > Cognition
Cognition
Description of Research
Faculty members in this concentration have a diverse range of interests in human cognitive abilities.
Dr Couvillon's research interest is the comparative analysis of learning, and her work includes study of both vertebrate and invertebrate species. Work with honeybees is focused on: 1) the rules that govern the interaction of stimuli in compound conditioning experiments, including summation, overshadowing, and blocking; 2) studies of inhibition in classical conditioning experiments; 3) the role of short-term memory; 4) the effects of variation in quality, quantity, and probability of reward on choice behavior in "risk-sensitivity" experiments; and 5) the development of a quantitative theory of honeybee choice behavior.
Dr Minke has been particularly interested in the area of classroom learning in higher education. Along with John Carlson, he developed the unit mastery system for teaching introductory psychology and has been involved in various projects designed to evaluate features of the classroom method of instruction. His current interests center on educational assessment.
Dr. Sophian's research interests focus on early cognitive development, particularly on understanding the developmental relations between earlier and later forms of knowledge. She is particularly interested in how children's understanding of mathematical concepts develops, both through informal (i.e., outside of school) activities and interactions and through school instruction. Current research projects address children's and adults' understanding of fraction magnitudes, and the processes by which children and adults compare large numerical quantities. Dr. Sophian’s research has been funded by grants from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and from the Spencer Foundation. Most of the research she and her students conduct involves working one-on-one with children at various schools around Oahu. Other studies use computer software (Superlab Pro) to precisely control stimulus presentations and/or to collect response-time measures.
Dr. Vitousek's principal areas of interest are the eating disorders and cognitive-behavioral theory and therapy (CBT). Her recent work includes the assessment and enhancement of motivation for change in anorexia nervosa, development of modified CBT approaches for the eating disorders, therapist training in CBT, and caloric restriction for longevity.
The research undertaken by Dr Sinnett is targeted towards understanding the fundamental concepts and mechanisms involved in human attention and perception. Data from his studies suggest that individual sensory systems (i.e., vision, audition) have access to modality specific reservoirs of attentional resources. Currently he is investigating aspects of temporal perception and how human cognition is adversely affected after traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Doumas is interested in the structure of the mental representations that underlie complex cognition. Specifically, he is interested in how humans (and possibly other animals) learn and then use representations of relational information (e.g., concepts like “above”, “bigger-than”, or “chases”) to solve problems and reason about the world, and how relational concepts are represented in neural architectures (like brains and artificial neural networks).
The cognitive concentration has facilities for computerized experiments, response time recording and video analysis. Other facilities for animal learning research are available to students in this concentration elsewhere in the university.
Cognition Faculty:
- Dr. Patricia Couvillon
- Dr. Leonidas Doumas
- Dr. Karl Minke
- Dr. Scott Sinnett
- Dr. Catherine Sophian
- Dr. Kelly Vitousek
