Concepts & Cognition Laboratory at Temple University
We are a group of cognitive scientists, neurorehabilitation clinicians and students who share a common interest in semantic memory. We are dedicated both to basic and clinical translational research. Some of our efforts involve applying what we know about language processing to improve communication for people with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease and Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). We are also investigating ways to better detect cognitive impairment in minority cognitive aging within the North Philadelphia community.
We are located within the Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience in the Ritter Annex building at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. The lab director/P.I. is Dr. Jamie Reilly. We offer numerous research opportunities, including a summer internship program, graduate thesis supervision, and independent studies. The lab leverages a variety of neurolinguistic tools and techniques including: eyetracking, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), psycholinguistic reaction time tasks, and neuroimaging. Our work is complex and computationally intensive. We cannot do it alone!
ongoing research
Identification of prodromal cognitive and linguistic impairment in cognitive aging
Semantic and physiological alignment between speakers during conversation
Symbolic knowledge and non-verbal semantic impairment in aphasia
Pupillometry and mathematical modeling of the task-evoked pupillary response
Etiology of cursing in neurological disorders
