Ryan Hubbard

University at Albany, State University of New York | UAlbany · Department of Psychology

When people process language, they can use context to predict upcoming information, influencing processing and comprehension as seen in both behavioral and neural measures. Although numerous studies have shown immediate facilitative effects of confirmed predictions, the downstream consequences of prediction have been less explored. In the current s...

It is well-established that aging impairs memory for associations more than it does memory for single items. Aging also impacts processes involved in online language comprehension, including the ability to form integrated, message-level representations. These changes in comprehension processes could impact older adults’ associative memory performan...

Although we often seem to successfully comprehend language in the face of distraction, few studies have examined the role of sustained attention in critical components of sentence processing, such as integrating information over a sentence and revising predictions when unexpected information is encountered. The current study investigated the impact...

Predicting upcoming events is a critical function of the brain, and language provides a fertile testing ground for studying prediction, as comprehenders use context to predict features of upcoming words. Many aspects of the mechanisms of prediction remain elusive, partly due to a lack of methodological tools to probe prediction formation in the mom...

Meta-memory involves the ability to correctly judge the accuracy of our memories. The retrieval of memories can be improved using transcranial electrical brain stimulation (tES) during sleep, but evidence for improvements to meta-memory sensitivity is limited. Applying tES can enhance sleepdependent memory consolidation, which along with meta-memor...

Across two experiments, we assessed the rates of relative forgetting following instructions to remember or forget information in an item-method directed forgetting paradigm across several retention intervals. In addition to the Forget and Remember cues, we also included Thought Substitution (TS) cues in the same design instructing participants to m...

Psycholinguistic researchers have used the cloze task to measure the predictability of upcoming words, but have largely discarded the variability in the structure of responses people provide. This variability in the semantic structure of responses may be important for understanding selection during language production; however, it has proven diffic...

Predicting upcoming words during language comprehension not only affects processing in the moment but also has consequences for memory, although the source of these memory effects (e.g., whether driven by lingering pre-activations, re-analysis following prediction violations, or other mechanisms) remains underspecified. Here, we investigated downst...

Eye-tracking methodologies have revealed that eye movements and pupil dilations are influenced by our previous experiences. Dynamic fluctuations in pupil size during learning reflect in part the formation of memories for learned information, while viewing behavior during memory testing is influenced by memory retrieval and drawn to previously learn...

This chapter reviews the electrophysiological research on four most commonly used figurative language types: metaphor, idioms, irony, and jokes. For metaphor, we focused on two issues: the incremental comprehension of metaphors and the role of metaphor in embodied cognition. In terms of comprehension, advances have been made regarding how meanings...

Humans have the ability to intentionally forget information via different strategies, included suppression of encoding (directed forgetting) and mental replacement of the item to encode (thought substitution). These strategies may rely on different neural mechanisms; namely, encoding suppression may induce pre-frontally mediated inhibition, whereas...

When reading, comprehenders construct a message-level representation and integrate new information as it becomes available. Such compositional processing may differ for idioms, where the meanings of the individual words do not always relate to the figurative meaning. Here, we examined how predictability and idiom decomposability contribute to compo...

Psychological and neuroscientific experiments have established that people can intentionally forget information via different strategies: direct suppression and thought substitution. However, few studies have directly compared the effectiveness of these strategies in forgetting specific items, and it remains an open question if the neural mechanism...

Psychological and neuroscientific experiments have established that people can intentionally forget information via different strategies: direct suppression and thought substitution. However, few studies have directly compared the effectiveness of these strategies in forgetting specific items, and it remains an open question if the neural mechanism...

Predicting upcoming stimuli and events is a critical function of the brain, and understanding the mechanisms of prediction has thus become a central topic in neuroscientific research. Language provides a fertile testing ground for examining predictive mechanisms, as comprehenders use context to predict different features of upcoming words. Although...

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during slow-wave oscillations (SWOs) in sleep has been demonstrated with sensory cues to achieve about 5–12% improvement in post-nap memory performance on simple laboratory tasks. But prior work has not yet addressed the one-shot aspect of episodic memory acquisition, or dealt with the presence of interference fro...

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during slow-wave oscillations (SWOs) in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep has been demonstrated with sensory cues to achieve about 5-12% improvement in post-nap memory performance on simple laboratory tasks. But prior work has neither addressed the one-shot aspect of episodic memory acquisition, nor dealt with t...

Virtual reality presents exciting new prospects for the delivery of educational materials to students. By combining this technology with biological sensors, a student in a virtual educational environment can be monitored for physiological markers of engagement or more cognitive states of learning. With this information, the virtual reality environm...

When meaningful stimuli such as words are encountered in groups or pairs (e.g., "elephant-ferry"), they can be processed either separately or as an integrated concept ("an elephant ferry"). Prior research suggests that memory for integrated associations is supported by different mechanisms than is memory for nonintegrated associations. However, lit...

The control of vocal pitch plays a central role in speech and singing, where accurate tonal production relies on modulating F0 production. Previous research has shown that vocal pitch is modulated in response to artificial pitch perturbations during ongoing vocalization (i.e., the pitch-shift response) with response characteristics differing betwee...