Stephenie Harrison

Graduate Student

Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience

Office: Wilson Hall 422D
Phone: 615-322-2835
Fax: 615-343-8449
Email:

Degrees

I am primarily interested in investigating the neurological underpinnings of higher cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and awareness in the human brain within the domain of visual cognitive neuroscience. The ambitious (and perhaps idealistic) question at the heart of my research is how exactly brain activity represents visual information. Particularly, I am interested in how information is transformed as it moves through the visual system, as well as how empirical neural content at various stages of processing influences and reflects our subjective visual experience. What systems or structures provoke and support the transition from implicit information processing to explicit awareness of content? What areas and neural mechanisms are involved in maintaining a highly precise representation in visual working memory? More specifically, what role do early visual areas play in this process? To explore these issues, my research involves numerous investigative methods, including fMRI decoding techniques, TMS, and psychophysics.

2008 - 2010: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) PGS-D2 scholarship
2005 - 2007: NSERC PGS-M scholarship

Harrison, S. A., & Tong, F. (In press). Decoding reveals the contents of visual working memory in early visual areas. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature07832
Boyer, J.L., Harrison, S., & Ro, T. (2005). Unconscious processing of orientation and color without primary visual cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16875-16879.