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Michigan State UniversityCognitive Science Program

MSU Cognitive Science News Archive

April 11, 2017
Prof. Arun Ross and his colleague from NYU have had their research on the security of mobile fingerprint scanning featured in The New York Times, MSU Today, Popular Science, Homeland Security News Wire, and Science 360 News.

March 23, 2017
Professors Arun Ross, Xiaoming Liu, and Anil Jain received a 4-year grant from IARPA to conduct research on Presentation Attack Detection for fingerprint, face and iris biometric systems. [link]

February 28, 2017
CSE student Thomas Swearingen and his adviser Prof. Arun Ross won the runner up award for best paper at ISBA 2017. [link]

January 23, 2017
Research on laptop use and classroom learning by Prof. Susan Ravizza, Mitchell Uitvlugt, and Prof. Kim Fenn was featured in US News, BYU Radio, The Conversation, and numerous higher education journals [1, 2, 3, 4].

January 17, 2017
Prof. Cristina Schmitt received an NSF Grant, Effects of Variation and Variability in the Acquisition of Two Dialects of Spanish, to study first language acquisition of Spanish in the context of variability caused by contact between two very different varieties of Spanish: Paraguayan Spanish, which is heavily influenced by Guaraní (an indigenous language), and Rioplatense Spanish (spoken in Buenos Aires). [link]

January 2017
Prof. Aline Godfroid received a Language Learning Early Career Research Grant for her validation project on "Measuring implicit and explicit L2 knowledge: Synthesizing 12 years of research."

November 1, 2016
Prof. Mark Becker has published five papers so far this year in Perception,Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,Packaging Technology and Science,Visual Cognition, and Applied Ergonomics.

October 3, 2016
Sunpreet Arora and Anil Jain were part of a team that won Best Paper at BioSig 2016 for their paper titled "3D Whole Hand Targets: Evaluating Slap and Contactless Fingerprint Readers".

October 3, 2016
Dr. Anil Jain was part of a team that won Best Poster at BioSig 2016 for a poster titled "Advances in Capturing Child Fingerprints: A High Resolution CMOS Image Sensor with SLDR Method".

September 27, 2016
Dr. Anil Jain and Dr. Arun Ross were awarded a three-year NSF grant under the Secure & Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program for their proposal entitled "Imparting Privacy to Biometric Data in Cyberspace".

September 25, 2016
Dr. Arun Ross (with Dr. Nasir Memon, NYU) was awarded a three-year NSF grant for their project entitled "The Master Print: Investigating and Addressing Vulnerabilities in Fingerprint-based Authentication Systems".

August 8, 2016
Science writer Carl Sherman's story on stuttering for the Dana Foundation website, titled Seeking Clues to Stuttering Deep Within the Brain, featured research by Prof. Devin McAuley.

Summer 2016
Prof. Mark Reimers and colleague Bruce McNaughton received an NSF grant to study the dynamics of hippocampal-cortical communication during memory formation and recall.

Summer 2016
Prof. Susan Ravizza became a senior editor for the journal Brain Research.

Summer 2016
Prof. Mark Reimers received a Templeton Foundation grant to study the molecular coherence of genetic variants related to behavioral traits, including IQ.

February 19, 2016
Prof. Kim Fenn did an interview with Michigan Radio about the link between sleep deprivation and false confessions. You can listen to the story here.

February 15, 2016
Prof. Devin McAuley and colleagues' research on stuttering has been featured in a piece by WLNS. You can watch the video and read the story here.

February 10, 2016
Prof. Kim Fenn and colleagues recently had their sleep deprivation and false confession study featured in Time magazine, CBS news, IFLS, and on the subreddit /r/news.

February 1, 2016
Prof. William Hartmann and colleagues published their study "Transaural experiments and a revised duplex theory for the localization of low-frequency tones" in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

October 1, 2015
Prof. Carol Myers-Scotton published a chapter in The Cambridge handbook of bilingual processing titled "Cross-language asymmetries in code-switching patterns, implications for bilingual language profuction." It is co-authored with Janice Jake of Midlands Technical College, South Carolina. Carol is an adjunct professor in the MSU Department of Linguistics and Languages and a research fellow in the MSU African Studies Center. The volume is edited by John Schweiter and was just published by CUP.

September 8, 2015
Prof. Susan Ravizza's recent work on students' technology use in the classroom was featured in an article on Healthline.

Fall semester, 2015
Prof. Mark Reimers is leading an NSF-funded working group on data analysis for the new BRAIN technologies.

August 28, 2015
Prof. Jeremy Gray was co-author on a recent publication in Science, “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science”.

August 24, 2015
Recent graduate Mina Hirzel was awarded the Baggett Fellowship, a one year post-baccalaureate research fellowship at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mina was an undergraduate researcher in the MSU Language Acquisition Lab for two and a half years.

July 23, 2015
Prof. Mark Reimers led the inaugural course on neural data analysis at Cold Spring Harbor Labs.

June 29, 2015
An article titled "Bridging the gap: from biometrics to forensics" by Arun Ross and Anil Jain was featured on the Planet Biometrics website. The Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society article discusses opportunities for inter-disciplinary research between biometrics and forensic science researchers.

June 10, 2015
Recent work on rythm and developmental stuttering by Prof. Devin McAuley and the TAP lab was discussed on Good Morning America. The research, supported by a RAIND grant, was also featured in The Epoch Times, The Herring Review, and Web MD.

March 11, 2015
The New Scientist and The Christian Science Monitor featured articles using research from MSU's Biometrics Research Group.

March 4, 2015
A study carried out by Prof. Susan Ravizza and colleagues on the non-academic use of internet in the classroom was featured in a New York Times article.

February, 2015
Announcement: new CogSci affiliated faculty member. Prof. Mark Reimers has joined the Neuroscience program; he is trained in mathematics and statistics and develops network models and analyzes big neural activity data sets. He is interested in brain dynamics in relation to behavior, especially value.

October 2, 2014
Dr. Ajita Rattani and Prof. Arun Ross received a Best Poster Award at the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB) in Clearwater Beach, FL for their paper titled, "Automatic Adaptation of Fingerprint Liveness Detector to New Spoof Materials.”

October 2, 2014
Dr. Unsang Park, Prof. Arun Ross and Prof. Anil Jain received the “Five Year Highest Impact Award” at the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB) in Clearwater Beach, FL for their 2009 paper titled "Periocular Biometrics in the Visible Spectrum: A Preliminary Study.”

August 25, 2014
Professor Arun Ross was awarded the Aggarwal Prize from the International Association for Pattern Recognition. Read about his plenary lecture or learn more about the story.

August 1, 2014
Professor Kim Fenn and the Sleep and Learning Lab were feature on the popular science site IFLS. Their work has also been featured on Science Daily, AOL News, Mashable, Bustle, and MSU Today.

July, 2014
Adjunct professor Carol Myers-Scotton published a study in Bilingualism, Language and Cognition titled "Nonfinite verbs and negotiating bilingualism in codeswitching: Implications for a language production model," co-authored with Janice Jake.

June 17, 2014
Professors Susan Ravizza, Zach Hambrick, and Kim Fenn's research into the impact of non-academic uses of technology in classrooms was featured in Science Daily and a radio interview with 98FM. Their work was also featured in Science Direct.

May 14, 2014
Professor Kim Fenn's Twitter study was featured as the "selected article" on the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review site. The study was also featured on Science Daily, Daily Mail, Science 2.0, and MSU Today.

May 4, 2014
Professor Kim Fenn's study on exercise and memory was featured in a Daily Mail article as well as on Psych Central, The Health Site, and The Telegraph.

April 15, 2014
Professor Natalie Phillips was named Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor of the Year and Honors College Research Mentor of the year for 2014.

June 4, 2013
Professor Arun Ross was awarded the IAPR Young Biometric Investigator Award for 2013. Watch his plenary lecture or read the story.

May 24, 2013
Professor Arun Ross gave a presentation about using new communication and information technologies for counter-terrorism to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee. Read the story here.

April 22, 2013
Professors Devin McAuley, Soo-Eun Chang, Laura Dilley, and Juli Wade were awarded a grant for their project "Rhythm Processing Deficits in Developmental Stuttering" from the GRAMMY Foundation.

April 22, 2013
Professors Judith Danovitch, Jason Moser, and Zach Hambrick were awarded a grant for their project "Neural, Cognitive, and Social Contributions to the Development of Intellectual Humility" from the Templeton Foundation/Fuller Theological Seminary.

April 22, 2013
Professor Susan Ravizza received an NSF Career Award.

February 21, 2013
Professor Natalie Phillips is interviewed on BBC radio. (Starts at 12:40)

January 11, 2013
Professors Erik Altmann and Zachary Hambrick's research is on Lifehacker and MSU news.

September 19, 2012
Professor Natalie Phillips's research is in the Stanford and MSU news.

May 6, 2012
Professor Zach Hambrick's research is in the New York Times.
[Read the article here.]

November 19, 2011
Professor Zach Hambrick's research is in the Sunday New York Times.
[Read the article here.]

October 26, 2011
Professor Kim Fenn is interviewed for BBC's show "All in the Mind".
[Listen to the interview here.]

October 6, 2011
Professor Zach Hambrick's research is featured on MLive.com.
[Read the story here.]

August 23, 2011
Professor Soo-Eun Chang's article is featured in Dana Foundation journal, Cerebrum.
[Read the story here.]

MSU CogSci in the News and Announcements

02.16.2022
Prof. Jan Brascamp, director of the visual neuroscience lab, and research assistant Haley Frey have an exhibition titled "FOMO?: Change Blindness and Selective Attention" on display at the MSU Museum Friday, March 4, 2022 from noon - 1pm. This collaboration between Michigan State University's Psychology Department and the MSU Museum is a part of the larger exhibition "The Observation Experiment" taking place from February 22 - April 30, 2022. Registration for this event is required and can be filled out here.

09.01.2020
ATTENTION: Because of the move to remote format for MSU classes and events during the Fall 2020 semester, cognitive science events will take place online until further notice. Please see specific event pages for more details on remote attending.

03.11.2020
Due to the novel coronavirus, all cognitive science events will be cancelled or postponed until further notice. We will release more information on new dates for postponed events as they are rescheduled. For official updates and information on MSU's response to the coronavirus, visit https://msu.edu/coronavirus/latest-updates

04.02.2019
Graduate student Stella (Cheng) Qian , member of the Brascamp lab for Visual Neuroscience, is the recipient of an Elsevier/Vision Research Travel Award for the 2019 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. [link]

04.01.2019
Prof. Aline Godfroid was the recipient of the 2019 TESOL Award for Distinguished Research. The award was granted by the TESOL organization for her study "Incidental vocabulary learning in a natural reading context: An eye-tracking study", which was published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. The article was selected by the organization as the best TESOL-related, empirical research article appearing in 2018. [link]

04.01.2019
Graduate student Kaylin Smith, member of the Phonetics and Phonology group at MSU, is the recipient of an International Phonetic Association Student Award for the 2019 International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, which takes place August 5-9th in Melbourne, Australia.

12.15.2018
Prof. Jan Brascamp , as instructor of the Cognitive Psychology honors course, had an exhibition titled The Art of Psychology of Perception on display at the MSU Broad Art Lab. This was a collaboration between the Psychology department and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. The exhibition was active from December 15th, 2018 until April 7, 2019. Rather than educating psychology students from utilizing a traditional art history overview, the students assessed the works on display using their own disciplinary background and perspective. [link]

8.18.2017
Prof. Arun Ross was one of four panelists in a BBC Newshour Extra program titled Facing the Future, moderated by journalist Owen Bennet Jones. The panel discussed advancements made from automated face recognition and also personal privacy and biometrics. [link]

7.31.2017
Prof. William Hartmann was awarded the 2017 Acoustical Society of America (ASA) Gold Medal for his contributions to the field of acoustics. His research has dealt with the perceptual analysis of sounds from varying sources, processing pitch, how humans localize sounds in space, and more. [link]

6.22.2017
Profs. Devin McAuley and Natalie Phillips received an NSF Grant, The Role of Narrative in Music Perception, to study the factors which shape narrative listening to music and the relationship between narrative listening and other aspects of musical perception. [link]

4.11.2017
Prof. Arun Ross and his colleague from NYU have had their research on the security of mobile fingerprint scanning featured in The New York Times, MSU Today, Popular Science, Homeland Security News Wire, and Science 360 News.

3.23.2017
Professors Arun Ross, Xiaoming Liu, and Anil Jain received a 4-year grant from IARPA to conduct research on Presentation Attack Detection for fingerprint, face and iris biometric systems. [link]

2.28.2017
CSE student Thomas Swearingen and his adviser Prof. Arun Ross won the runner up award for best paper at ISBA 2017. [link]

1.23.2017
Research on laptop use and classroom learning by Prof. Susan Ravizza, Mitchell Uitvlugt, and Prof. Kim Fenn was featured in US News, BYU Radio, The Conversation, and numerous higher education journals [1, 2, 3, 4].

1.17.2017
Prof. Cristina Schmitt received an NSF Grant, Effects of Variation and Variability in the Acquisition of Two Dialects of Spanish, to study first language acquisition of Spanish in the context of variability caused by contact between two very different varieties of Spanish: Paraguayan Spanish, which is heavily influenced by Guaraní (an indigenous language), and Rioplatense Spanish (spoken in Buenos Aires). [link]

1.1.2017
Prof. Aline Godfroid received a Language Learning Early Career Research Grant for her validation project on "Measuring implicit and explicit L2 knowledge: Synthesizing 12 years of research."

11.1.2016
Prof. Mark Becker has published five papers so far this year in Perception,Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,Packaging Technology and Science,Visual Cognition, and Applied Ergonomics.

10.3.2016
Sunpreet Arora and Anil Jain were part of a team that won Best Paper at BioSig 2016 for their paper titled "3D Whole Hand Targets: Evaluating Slap and Contactless Fingerprint Readers".

10.3.2016
Dr. Anil Jain was part of a team that won Best Poster at BioSig 2016 for a poster titled "Advances in Capturing Child Fingerprints: A High Resolution CMOS Image Sensor with SLDR Method".

9.27.2016
Dr. Anil Jain and Dr. Arun Ross were awarded a three-year NSF grant under the Secure & Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program for their proposal entitled "Imparting Privacy to Biometric Data in Cyberspace".

9.25.2016
Dr. Arun Ross (with Dr. Nasir Memon, NYU) was awarded a three-year NSF grant for their project entitled "The Master Print: Investigating and Addressing Vulnerabilities in Fingerprint-based Authentication Systems".

8.8.16
Science writer Carl Sherman's story on stuttering for the Dana Foundation website, titled Seeking Clues to Stuttering Deep Within the Brain, featured research by Prof. Devin McAuley.

Summer 2016
Dr. Mark Becker was invited by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to present his work investigating individual differences in cognition and personality that predict rare target detection at their Workshop on Developing Personnel Selection Tools for Forensic Scientists.

Summer 2016
Prof. Mark Reimers and colleague Bruce McNaughton received an NSF grant to study the dynamics of hippocampal-cortical communication during memory formation and recall.

Summer 2016
Prof. Susan Ravizza became a senior editor for the journal Brain Research.

Summer 2016
Prof. Mark Reimers received a Templeton Foundation grant to study the molecular coherence of genetic variants related to behavioral traits, including IQ.

For older news, check out our news archive here.