In graduate school I investigated the
following questions: Can we think of the human body as an object with parts and features, a rigid form, and a typical structure? Can we also think of the human body
as a dynamic object that can take on a variety of shapes, move, and act in the environment? The simple answer to both of these questions is: Yes. My area of research explores the perceptual processes involved in human
body cognition. Human body processing is complex, in that it is involved in a stream of processing from early perceptual representation to more dynamic and purposeful action. In one series of studies our laboratory
explored how an observer’s movement would affect the position judgments of a human body model. We found that the time it took for observers to move either their arms or legs was critically dependent on whether they
facilitated or interfered with judgments of those same limb positions on a human model. My current set of studies explore whether human bodies are processed more like other rigid objects where parts are explicitly
represented, or whether they are more like human faces where features are treated more holistically as a part of the object.
I am now working at Cambrium
Learning, Inc. They are an educational press, publishing teaching
intervention programs and materials for teachers to target at-risk or below
grade-level students in the public schools. The company is unique in that they
have a research department charged with designing program evaluation studies to
measure the effectiveness of the intervention programs they are selling.
Bringing some scientific rigor to intervention programs in the public
schools has become increasingly important with the No Child Left Behind Act; the
Federal Government now has scientific criteria to which all adopted programs in
the public schools must meet in order to retain federal funding.
