Lauren Williams research opportunity in Israel

Cognition and Neural Science program

Advisor: Trafton Drew

Earlier this year Lauren got to travel to Tel Aviv, Israel as part of her Rahaminoff Travel Grant throught the Binational Science Foundation.  She was able to work in Dr. Roy Luria's lab at Tel Aviv University.  During her time there, she worked with an excellent group of researchers in order to design and create stimuli for a new study that extends on an existing collaboration with our University of Utah lab.  Using an electrophysiological marker of working memory (Contralateral Delay Activity), Balaban and Luria (2017) discovered that working memory representations could either be discarded and replaced (working memory resetting) or modified (working memory updating) in response to changing information in the environment.  The new experiment investigates how our existing knowledge about an object influences the working memory resetting process.  In contrast to the polygons and squares used in prior research, real world objects often change in predictable ways.   For example, we have expectations that a lid may separate from a pot (i.e., a natural break).   However, it would be surprising if the pot suddenly split in the middle (i.e., an unnatural break).   In the new study, we are manipulating whether real world objects split apart in natural or unnatural ways in order to determine how our expectations about objects influence how our WM representations are modified.  

My visit to Tel Aviv University was an invaluable experience.   Working in Roy Luria's lab enabled me to learn a number of new skills, develop an exciting new line of research, and establish a group of international collaborators that I will likely benefit from for years to come.