TCNJ ERP Lab Projects

Current Areas of Research

Note. Student co-authors are underlined in the citations that appear below.

Source Monitoring and ERPs

We have a series of projects that investigate ERPs during source memory tests. Source memory is memory for the origin of information. For example, did you find out that Event-Related Potentials are measures of brain activity on this web page or did you read about them in a book? We have several research projects that are investigating topics such as:

Source Memory for Actions

We are investigating how people remember actions that they have (or have not) completed.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A., Grey, J.A., & Crawford, J.T. (2006) Event-related potential (ERP) evidence for sensory-based action memories. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 62, 193-202.

Leynes, P.A., Crawford, J.T., & Bink, M.L. (2005) Interrupted actions affect output monitoring and event-related potentials (ERPs). Memory, 13, 759-772.

Leynes, P.A. & Bink, M.L. (2002) Did I do that? An ERP study of memory for performed and planned actions. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 45, 197-218.

Leynes, P. A., Marsh, R. L., Hicks, J. L., Allen, J. D., & Mayhorn, C. B. (2003). Investigating the encoding and retrieval of intentions with event-related potentials (ERPs). Consciousness & Cognition, 12, 1-18

Reality Monitoring

This type of source monitoring examines how people distinguish between information they have seen or heard from an external source versus information that they have imagined or generated.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A., Cairns, A., & Crawford, J.T. (2005) Event-related potentials indicate that reality monitoring differs from external source monitoring. American Journal of Psychology, 118, 497-524.

The Effect of Test Cues on Source Memory

To examine test cues, we manipulate the cues that people have during a source test. For example, people might see and hear words at study and then take a test where all the words are seen again.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A., Bink, M.L., Marsh, R.L., Allen, J.D., & May, J.C. (2003). Test Modality Affects Source-Monitoring and Event-related Potentials. American Journal of Psychology, 116(3), 389-413.

The Role of Decision Processes on Source Monitoring

We are investigating how the strategy that one adopts during remembering affects source monitoring and ERP activity.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A. (2002). The effect of test queries on source monitoring event-related potentials (ERPs). Brain & Cognition, 50 (2), 218-233.

Recollection in Source Monitoring

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A. & Phillips, M. (2008). Event-related potential (ERP) evidence for varied recollection during source monitoring. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 741-751.

How Gender Stereotypes can be used during Source Monitoring

We have a series of experiments that investigate how people use implict gender stereotypes (i.e., what is male or female) when remembering.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Crawford, J.T., Leynes, P.A., Mayhorn, C.B. & Bink, M.L. (2004). Champagne, beer, or coffee? A corpus of gender-related and neutral words. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers. 36, 444-458.

Recognition Memory

We have an interest in studying recognition (how one discriminates old from new).

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A., Landau, J.D., Walker, J., & Addante, R.J. (2005). Event-related potential evidence for multiple causes of the revelation effect. Consciousness & Cognition, 14(2), 327-350.

Curran, T., DeBuse, C., & Leynes, P.A. (2007). Conflict and criterion setting in recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 2-17.

Memory Blocking

We are investigating why/how retrieval can become blocked. Blocking occurs when you retrieve the wrong information (not the information that you were seeking) and this retrieval actually interferes with (or blocks) your ability to seek and find the correct information.

Lab articles relevant to this topic:

Leynes, P.A., Brown, J., & Landau, J.D. (in press). Objective and subjective measures indicate that orthographically similar words produce a blocking experience. Memory.

Leynes, P.A., Rass, O., & Landau, J.D. (2008). Eliminating the memory block effect. Memory, 16, 852-872.

Landau, J.D., & Leynes, P.A. (2006). Do explicit memory manipulations affect the memory blocking effect? American Journal of Psychology, 119, 463-479.

Rass, O. & Leynes, P.A. (2007). When do primes go bad? A corpus of orthographically related primes that inhibit fragment completion. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 870-875.

Rass, O., Landau, J.D., Curran, T., & Leynes, P.A. (2010). Event-related potential (ERP) correlated of memory blocking and priming during a word fragment test. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 78, 136-150.