Psychology

Department Chair and Professor of Psychology

 

Education

B.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A., University of Connecticut
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Areas of Psychology

Cognitive and Social Neuroscience
Exercise and Health Psychology

 

Research

My research is generally focused in two related areas. In one area, I am interested in understanding self-regulatory cognitive processing and the events or circumstances that lead to the engagement or modification of self-regulation during task execution. More specifically, I am interested in the influences of situational and motivational factors on both one's ability to correctly engage in a cognitive task and one's patterns of neural activation present during the task.

In my other area of research, I am interested in examining patterns of neural activation that are present during ongoing dynamic plate appearances in baseball. This not only gives a real-time indication of the ever-shifting attentional and processing needs that hitters face when they are in the batter’s box, but when combined with the well-established neuroscience literature on cognitive task execution, it also allows for comparisons between the neural processes needed to successfully navigate tasks from different domains. Additionally, this area of research allows for a more complete understanding of how feedback processing and stimulus processing differences can lead to substantial shifts in a hitter's behavior during a plate appearance. 

 

Visit Dr. Themanson's Research Webpage