Psychologists use MRI to study the brain’s structural features and functional activities so they can better understand how we perceive and remember things, and how we process language. Their work provides groundbreaking insights into the cognitive human experience.

Language

"I study language, and language is something that happens very fast. We speak at a rate of about four words every second. There are a lot of areas of the brain related to the language network that we can try to isolate in the MRI. For me, it's a way to get a better sense of the complex network that the brain uses to make language happen."
-Diogo Almeida, associate professor of psychology

Memory

"Most of my research focuses on working memory, which allows us to accomplish short-term tasks like grocery lists and following directions. I use MRI and MEG as complementary techniques. Another area is understanding how consciousness is implemented in the brain. We are using MRI to look at the difference in brain activity when someone is aware of having seen something and when they’re not aware."
-Kartik Sreenivasan, assistant professor of psychology

Perception

“My research focus is on how our brains make sense of what we see. We are highly efficient in recognizing thousands of different people and objects. Our expertise in recognizing various familiar things like faces, words, and artifacts leads to specialization in different brain regions and networks. The use of MRI is crucial for me to understand how the human brain perceives visual information and transforms them into concepts.”
-Olivia Cheung, assistant professor of psychology