Why is learning easier in some moments than others?
Our ability to learn and remember does not occur in isolation from other ongoing cognitive processes or external events. For example, shifts in internal states like fluctuations in attention, can determine whether our brains are primed for learning. Similarly, the intrinsic properties of certain events, like how rewarding or surprising they are, can interact with our memory processes to determine what we remember - or forget.
We study moment-to-moment fluctuations in the ability to learn and form memories to understand how they interact with other aspects of cognition. This work helps to reveal the factors (neurochemical, or cognitive) that shape what we take away from our experiences. It also helps us better understand why learning and memory can be so challenging at certain times or in certain individuals.
How do children learn in ways that are different from adults?
Humans are remarkable among animals for their unusually long childhood. While our closest relatives, chimpanzees, reach maturity by their early teens, humans often remain dependent, in a state of developmental immaturity for nearly two decades.
Far from being a weakness, this prolonged period of immaturity may be evolution’s way of giving children a special window for learning. This slow period of development, especially in cognitive systems, may allow children to absorb and learn information and adapt with flexibility that may be inaccessible later in life.
Humans slow development raises lots of intruiging questions: Are children’s immature minds and brains optimized for different types of learning from adults? What advantages and disadvantages does an extended childhood impose for learning? Why have humans evolved to have such a long childhood?
How and why does learning differ across individuals?
Why do people remember and learn such different things? Individual differences in memory aren’t just about individual differences in memory ability per se (although that certainly plays a role). These differences can also be due to differences in other factors, like attentional systems, emotional reactions, decisions, and the like.
Our research investigates individual differences in learning systems, such as attention and reward processing, and how they shape what we remember. We also examine larger-scale influences: How do enriched or impoverished environments impact the developing brain’s learning systems? How do neurodevelopmental disorders rooted in attention, like ADHD, constrain memory?
By exploring these cognitive factors and macro-level structural influences, we aim to understand not only why people differ in learning and memory ability, but also why they differ in the very content of what sticks with them throughout life.
How can we improve learning and education for struggling learners?
We are excited to start translating basic scientific findings into evidence-based strategies to boost learning and educational outcomes. We aim to take everything we’ve learned about learning to develop tools to help people learn better in this information saturated world.
Interested in these questions? Want to join the team?
If you are interested in a position as a lab manager, research assistant, graduate student, or postdoc, please get in touch! I am actively growing the team and would love to hear from you!