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Benoit, Roland

Associate Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • Humans possess the remarkable capacity to vividly remember a plethora of experiences from their lives. They can voluntarily reminisce about cherished moments but also be haunted by intrusive memories of unpleasant experiences. At the heart of the research in the Adaptive Memory Lab is the insight that memory is not merely a passive capacity but a constructive process. As such, memories, on one hand, are malleable to change and disruption but, on the other hand, can also be recombined into novel experiences. We seek to understand the nature of adaptive memory by using behavioral, fMRI, and neuromodulation methods, and by examining cognitive functions in patients with focal brain lesions.

keywords

  • memory, forgetting, suppression, learning, episodic simulation, episodic future thinking, cognitive control, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, neuroimaging, fMRI

Teaching

courses taught

  • CSCI 6402 - Issues and Methods in Cognitive Science
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2023
    Interdisciplinary introduction to cognitive science, examining ideas from cognitive psychology, philosophy, education, and linguistics via computational modeling and psychological experimentation. Includes philosophy of mind; learning; categorization; vision and mental imagery; consciousness; problem solving; decision making, and game-theory; language processing; connectionism. No background in Computer Science will be presumed. Same as EDUC 6504 and LING 6200 and PHIL 6310 and PSYC 6200 and SLHS 6402.
  • LING 6200 - Issues and Methods in Cognitive Science
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2023
    Interdisciplinary introduction to cognitive science, examining ideas from cognitive psychology, philosophy, education, and linguistics via computational modeling and psychological experimentation. Includes philosophy of mind; learning; categorization; vision and mental imagery; consciousness; problem solving; decision making, and game-theory; language processing; connectionism. No background in computer science will be presumed. Recommended prerequisite: at least one course at the 3000-level or higher in CSCI, LING, PHIL, or PSYC. Same as CSCI 6402 and EDUC 6504 and PHIL 6310 and PSYC 6200 and SLHS 6402.
  • PHIL 6310 - Issues and Methods in Cognitive Science
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2023
    Interdisciplinary introduction to cognitive science, examining ideas from cognitive psychology, philosophy, education, and linguistics via computational modeling and psychological experimentation. Includes philosophy of mind; learning; categorization; vision and mental imagery; consciousness; problem solving; decision making, and game-theory; language processing; connectionism. No background in computer science will be presumed. Recommended prerequisite: at least one course at the 3000-level or higher in CSCI, LING, PHIL, or PSYC. Same as CSCI 6402 and EDUC 6504 and LING 6200 and PSYC 6200 and SLHS 6402.
  • PSYC 2145 - Introductory Cognitive Psychology
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2024 / Fall 2024
    Introduces the study of human cognitive processes and covers perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making. Focuses on basic research and theory in cognitive psychology but also considers their implications for everyday applications such as effective learning and retention, multitasking, and eyewitness testimony.
  • PSYC 6200 - Issues and Methods in Cognitive Science
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2023
    Interdisciplinary introduction to cognitive science, examining ideas from cognitive psychology, philosophy, education, and linguistics via computational modeling and psychological experimentation. Includes philosophy of mind; learning; categorization; vision and mental imagery; consciousness; problem solving; decision making, and game-theory; language processing; connectionism. No background in computer science will be presumed. Same as CSCI 6402 and EDUC 6504 and LING 6200 and PHIL 6310 and SLHS 6402.

Background

International Activities

geographic focus

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