Welcome to the MACLab

The MACLab is in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iowa. Our research spans a large number of domains in perception and development. Some of the questions we are interested in are:

• How do we perceive speech sounds? What processes does the brain go through in order to decode everyday speech?
• How do we learn to understand speech? How do children learn to use this amazing facility?
• How do children link these auditory represnentations to meanings? How do children learn words?
• How are other types of auditory and visual cateogries perceived and learned?
• How can computational models of the brain help us understand these processes? What kinds of computations can the brain perform?

The MACLab is committed to the view that the brain is interactive, dynamic, graded and probabilistic. It can only be understood by examining behavior in the moment. Time is essential, both at the scale of milliseconds (the unfolding of perception) and over the lifespan of the organism (the unfolding of development). Development underpins all aspects of this study, and it is no simple question in and of itself. Development is not simply the unfolding of genes, nor is it the imprinting of the environment. Rather development is the continual interplay of the organism and the environment, constrained by mathemetics.

Our lab is heavily invested in students of all stages. Undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, even alumni, are integral to the research we do. In many cases the students lead the research, asking the tough questions, coming up with the right experiments and making the important scientific contributions. If you are serious about learning about the mind, and brain and how they interface with the linguistic and perceptual world, the MACLab is the place for you.

Please feel free to explore our web site to learn more about who we are, what we study, and how we study it. Thanks for dropping by, and I hope we see you in the lab soon.

-- Prof. Bob McMurray

News

• April 14, 2008

  Marcus Galle presented a poster at the 10th Cochlear Implant Conference this past weekend in San Diego, CA. Marcus presented work on how mechanisms of development may be affected by the unique circumstances present in Cochlear Implant users

• April 1, 2008

  Graduate Student Marcus Galle gave a talk at the International Conference on Infant Studies this past weekend, the conference was held in Vancouver Canada and Marcus discussed work he's been doing on infant perception of allophonic variants

• March 10, 2008

  The MACLAB is proud of honors undergraduate researcher Megan Mathews for presenting current research at Research in the Capital, an opportunity for undergraduate honors students working with faculty to present their research to State Legislators at the State House in Des Moines. Go Megan!

  
  

• February 5, 2008

  The MACLAB is up and humming again for another semester, we've added a couple of new memeber (check them out in our lab members section) and even had a talk accepted to ISIS

• July 6, 2007

  Former MACLAb research assistant William (Dan) McEchron will be re-joining the lab as our lab manager when he returns from Japan. We're looking forward to having him back!

  
  

• June 27, 2007

  Congratulations to lab members who have had posters accepted to the features conference in Paris this fall. Conference information

  
  

• May 25, 2007

  Pilot subject number 1 enrolled in the 18 year longitudinal study on May 25, 2007! Weighing in at 7 lbs, 9oz, and with near perfect APGAR's of 9, he's raring for a good life. We'll violate confidentiality for the moment to report his name: Robert Alden McMurray. What a guy!