Mathias S Fleck, Graduate Student    Edit

Research Summary:
I am interested in exploring the effects of expertise and expectation on visual perception, with an emphasis on findings that may have immediate social importance. I have also worked with functional imaging techniques to examine the common neural components subserving episodic memory and perceptual judgments. Current inquiries include:
1) In visual search tasks, how does target frequency change observer expectation and behavior?
2) What are the effects of videogame expertise on real-world search tasks (airport security, mammogram screening)?
3) How do other stimulus properties (salience, heterogeneity) interact with target prevalence to change accuracy of detection?
4) More generally, what causes the frequent misses found in socially important real-world search tasks (which often have low target prevalence), and how can they be alleviated?

Representative Publications:   (search)

1. Fleck, M.S. & Mitroff, S.R. (2007). Rare targets are rarely missed in correctable search. Psychological Science.
2. Fleck, M.S., Daselaar, S.M., Dobbins, I.G., & Cabeza, R. (2006). Role of prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions in decision-making processes shared by memory and non-memory tasks. Cerebral Cortex.
3. Davis, S., Dennis, N., Daselaar, S., Fleck, M., & Cabeza, R. (in press). Que PASA? The posterior-anterior shift in aging. Cerebral Cortex.
4. Daselaar, S.M., Fleck, M.S., Prince, S., & Cabeza, R. (2006). The medial temporal lobe distinguishes old from new independently of consciousness. Journal of Neuroscience.
5. Daselaar, S.M., Fleck, M.S., & Cabeza, R. (2006). Triple dissociation in the medial temporal lobes: recollection, familiarity, and novelty. Journal of Neurophysiology.
6. Daselaar, S.M., Fleck, M.S., Dobbins, I.G., Madden, D.J., & Cabeza, R. (2006). Effects of healthy aging on hippocampal and rhinal memory functions: An event-related fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex.