ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
ASSOCIATE CHAIR
PHD PROGRAM COORDINATOR
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, LOWELL
MEGAN H. PAPESH
I'm an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at UMass Lowell, having previously held that title at both Louisiana State University and New Mexico State University. I think I only need the Pacific Northwest to achieve regional bingo (I'm from the Midwest), but I'm going to walk away with the chips I have.
My lab investigates human cognitive processes, including the dynamics of episodic memory creation and retrieval (and how those memories influence visual attention), unfamiliar face perception/recognition, and the influence of contextual statistics and LC-NE system activity on attention and perception. We approach these topics using convergent techniques; we use classic behavioral paradigms, but also more modern tools, including eye-tracking, mouse-tracking, pupillometry, and single-unit recording. Our overarching goal is to develop a richer theoretical and applied understanding of the processes by which episodic memory influences real-time cognitive processes.
Please note: This website is (perpetually) under construction.
SOME RECENT (ACCEPTED/PUBLISHED) RESEARCH
See the Cool New Stuff page for not-yet-published items!
We recently (finally!) finished an edited volume all about modern takes on pupillometry research. Since the early 2000s, pupillometry research has surged in popularity. Although many researchers have written helpful reviews and tutorials, the only compiled resource was published in the 1970s. We brought together researchers with expertise across many psychological, neurophysiological, and quantitative domains to put together a book that we hope helps guide and inspire new pupillometry research. Section 1 explores the neurophysiological basis of task-evoked pupillary responses, Section 2 explores the use of pupillometry in psychological science, and Section 3 provides in-depth discussions and tutorials for pupillary analysis. I am so grateful to all of our contributing authors for their excellent chapters!
We recently published a paper at Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications investigating how race/ethnicity details affect prospective person memory (PPM). PPM is essentially being on the lookout for someone who is missing or wanted. In a laboratory version of that task, participants in our study classified other White and Indian faces according to the direction they were facing while trying to be mindful to spot a "missing" Indian or White person. If they spotted that person, they were to abandon the ongoing task and issue a different response. Our primarily White participants were slower (see the dots in graph to the right) when monitoring for an Indian missing person. They were also less likely to recognize the faces of other Indian people they encountered during the ongoing task. These results have implications for how people monitor for missing individuals and the way disparate media attention can further exaggerate these effects.
Recently published at Applied Cognitive Psychology, we (Cash et al.) examined how people interpret eyewitness expressions of confidence that are issued before and after lineup decisions. Across four studies, we manipulated the type of confidence statement expressed (numeric versus verbal), whether that statement was accompanied by a featural justification (e.g., "I am positive because I remember his eyebrows"), and when the statement was supposedly given (before or after the identification). Although pre-identification confidence statements are theoretically based only on the quality of the memory trace, and are uncontaminated by other factors (e.g., foils from the lineup), we found that people routinely interpreted pre-identification statements as less confident and less likely to be accurate.