Haline Schendan
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Neurosciences,
University of California, San Diego, 1998
Haline_E.Schendan@tufts.edu
Vision & Memory Neuroimaging Lab

Haline Schendan is Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University. She also holds appointments as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston University and as Visiting Scientist at the Center for Functional Neuroimaging Technologies at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schendan has received grant funding to support her research from the National Institute of Health and private foundations. She is interested in the brain basis of human visual knowledge, investigating visual perception, object and scene cognition, and learning and memory, using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), as well as behavioral methods in neuropsychological studies of patients with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.

In the Vision & Memory Neuroimaging Lab, we combine methods of cognitive neuroscience to investigate the brain basis of human visual knowledge. In our research, we examine object, scene, and spatial perception and cognition, learning, and memory in the visual sensory modality. We are interested in which posterior and prefrontal cortical regions enable people to categorize what they see, and how long an image is processed before they can do this. We also investigate the role of corticostriatal circuits and the medial temporal lobe in visual cognition. The primary techniques we use are event-related brain potentials (ERPs), which have high time resolution, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which has high spatial resolution. We combine these neuroimaging techniques, and others, to characterize the cortical dynamics supporting human cognition. Most of our research involves young healthy populations. We also study how neural systems for vision and memory change with normal aging and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease. We use a multimodal methods approach to define when (ERP / MEG), where (fMRI, neuropsychology), and how particular neural processes and representations support human vision, learning, and memory.

Undergraduate students at Tufts University interested in research in our lab may register for Psy 21/22 for sophomores, Psy 121/122 for juniors and seniors. Students may also do an honors thesis in the senior year but should establish a relationship with the lab as soon as possible before the senior year, but spring semester of the junior year at the latest.

Those interested in graduate research on the cognitive neuroscience of vision, learning, and memory may apply to the graduate program in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University.

Students considering research in the Vision & Memory Neuroimaging lab should email Haline_E.Schendan@tufts.edu.

Schendan, H.E., & Kutas, M. (in press). Neurophysiological Evidence for Transfer Appropriate Processing of Memory: Processing versus Feature Similarity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Manuscript accepted for publication.

Schendan, H.E., & Kutas, M. (in press). Neurophysiological Evidence for the Role of Representations of Global Shapes, Parts, and Local Contours in Visual Object Categorization and Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Manuscript accepted for publication.

Ganis, G., Schendan, H.E., & Kosslyn, S.M. (2007).  Neuroimaging evidence for object model verification theory: Role of prefrontal control in visual object categorization. Neuroimage, 34(1), 384-398.

Tinaz, S., Schendan, H. E., & Stern, C. E. (in press).  Fronto-striatal deficit in Parkinson’s disease during semantic event sequencing. Neurobiology of Aging. [Published online December 8, 2006].

Tinaz, A.S., Schendan, H.E., Schon, K., & Stern C.E. (2006). Evidence for the Importance of Basal Ganglia Output Nuclei in Semantic Event Sequencing: An fMRI Study. Brain Research, 1067(1):239-249.

Amick, M.M., Schendan, H.E., Ganis, G., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2006). Frontostriatal Circuits Are Necessary for Visuomotor Transformation: Mental Rotation in Parkinson's Disease. Neuropsychologia, 44:339-349.

Schendan, H.E., Searl, M.M., Melrose, R.J., & Stern, C.E. (2003). An fMRI Study of the Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Implicit and Explicit Sequence Learning. Neuron, 37:1013-1025.

Schendan, H.E. & Kutas, M. (2003).  Time Course of Processes and Representations Supporting Visual Object Identification and Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(1): 111-135.

Schendan, H.E., Searl, M.M., Melrose, R.J. & Stern, C.E. (2003). Sequence? What Sequence? – the human medial temporal lobe and sequence learning. Molecular Psychiatry, 8(11), 896-897.

Schendan, H.E., & Kutas, M. (2002).  Neurophysiological Evidence for Two Processing Times for Visual Object Identification.  Neuropsychologia, 40(7): 931-945.

Schendan, H.E., Ganis, G., & Kutas, M. (1998).  Neurophysiological Evidence for Visual Perceptual Categorization of Words and Faces within 150 ms. Psychophysiology, 35(3):240-251.

Schendan, H.E., Kanwisher, N.G., & Kutas, M. (1997). Early Brain Potentials Link Repetition Blindness, Priming and Novelty Detection.  Neuroreport, 8(8):1943-1948.