Faculty member

Research Interests

• Lifespan neurocognitive development of memory, perception, and goal-directed behavior
• Behavioral and brain plasticity
• Human-machine interactions

Available PhD Projects

(1) Development or/and aging of active perception

Perception and action are dynamically coupled in many human behaviors. The frontal, parietal, and occipitotemporal regions are crucially involved in action planning and in processing observed actions performed by others, making this network (known as the action observation network) a likely candidate for underlying active perception. Brain regions in the action observation network undergo different developmental time courses and are affected by aging to different degrees. This project will investigate developmental or aging-related mechanisms affecting active perception by focusing on age-related differences in the representational spaces of the brain’s action observation network in different age groups.

(2) Lifespan development of representing spatial and conceptual contexts  

The prefrontal and hippocampal networks implicate representations of conceptual as well as spatial relations. These two networks undergo clear developmental- and aging-related changes across the lifespan. This project will investigate common as well as specific aspects of conceptual and spatial representations in children, younger adults, and older adults. Such comparisons are important for understanding how the prefrontal and medial temporal regions may interactively contribute to age differences in representing conceptual and spatial relations.