Elizabeth Brannon, Assistant Professor

Research Summary:
The main focus of my research is how human adults, infants, and monkeys represent number. Numerical thinking allows a comparison of animal and adult human cognition because it involves abstract representations that do not rely on language and appear to be specialized and modularized. Equally important is understanding how numerical representations develop in the human lifespan and how language transorms these representations. My broad research goal is to determine the similarities and differences in the cognitive processes that human adults, human infants, and animals use in numerical thought and to explore the brain systems that support thinking about number.

Representative Publications:   (More Publications)

1. Cantlon, J., & Brannon, E.M. (2006). Shared system for ordering small and large numbers in monkeys and humans. Psychological Science, 17(5), 401-406.
2. Cantlon, J.F., & E.M. Brannon (2005). Semantic congruity facilitates number judgments in monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(45), 16507–16511.
3. Brannon, E.M. (2002). The Development of Ordinal Numerical Knowledge in Infancy. Cognition, 83, 223-240.
4. Roitman, J., Brannon. E.M. & Platt, M.L. (2007). Monotonic Coding of Numerosity in Macaque. PLoS Biology, 5(8).
5. Cantlon, J.F. & Brannon, E.M. (2007). Basic math in monkeys and college students. PLoS Biology, 5(12), e328.
6. Cordes, S., Brannon, E.M (in press). The difficulties of representing continuous extent in infancy: representing number is just easier.. Child Development.
7. Brannon, E.M. (2006). The representation of numerical magnitude. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 222-229.

Lab Personnel: 
Sara Cordes - Post-doc Dustin Merritt - Post-doc Jessica Cantlon - visiting Post-doc Melissa Libertus- Graduate Student (year 4) David Paulsen Graduate student (year 1) Emily Hopkins (infant lab manager) Monica Carlson (monkey lab manager) Maggie Vogel (fMRI research assistant)