Current Members

Jenny is a senior member of the Cognition and Language Laboratory. She is working on several projects, including work on hemispheric effects in processing and memory for different word types, attentional processes related to emotion word processing, metacognition, attentional blink, and strategies in second language learning. Jenny has published a recent book chapter written with her advisor, Dr. Jeanette Altarriba, which appears in Methods in Bilingual Reading Comprehension Research, as well as articles appearing in Language and Speech and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. She has presented original research at a variety of conferences, including the International Symposium on Bilingualism, many of the annual meetings of the Psychonomic Society, and the International Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. She is generally interested in emotion and bilingualism and their effects on both language and other cognitive processes, such as attention, memory, executive control, as well as their educational applications. Jenny is a full time faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Normandale Community College.

Mary is a seventh-year doctoral student in the Cognition and Language Laboratory and is currently interested in the role of discrete emotion (e.g., fear, anger, disgust) on language processing, including attentional biases and memory for word stimuli. Specifically, she is interested in the timecourse of discrete effects, especially in relation to other well-established emotion variables such as valence and arousal. Mary is also interested in the survival processing advantage in memory as it relates to individual differences in creativity and divergent thinking, as well as working memory capacity. In more applied settings, Mary has contributed to research on health disparities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals, and the impact that induced emotion has on ethical decision-making, such as the kind made in jury deliberations. Overall, she is interested in how aspects of our cognition may be adaptive, and what this means for memory, perception, reasoning, and the complex functioning that we enjoy today.

Dailyn is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Cognition and Language Laboratory. Currently, her research interests focus on how emotional stimuli are processed and remembered within the survival paradigm. Her research focuses on bilingualism and emotion word processing. She is working on several projects, including work on the effects of language in adaptive memory. Dailyn has also co-authored entries on topics such as emotion socialization, the influence of language on cognition, and various language topics in peer-reviewed encyclopedias and other such volumes. Several of her projects have been presented at conferences such as the Psychonomic Society and the Midwestern Psychological Association. Overall, Dailyn is interested in how aspects of emotion and language may be adaptive, and what this means for human cognition. 

Sarah is a third-year doctoral student in the Cognition and Language Laboratory and is currently interested in language acquisition, survival processing, and word type. Specifically, how survival processing and language acquisition allows for the retention and better performance. Her research also focuses recall and word type effects on intentional/incidental learning strategies. Several of her projects have been presented in conferences, including Association of Psychological Science and Psychonomic Society. Sarah has also co-authored entries covering topics such as arousal, gossip and indirect reciprocity, and various mate poaching topics in peer-reviewed encyclopedias. In whole, Sarah is interested in how we, as humans, process words and how those processes differ among language acquisition and individual differences.

Bailey is a second-year doctoral student in the Cognition and Language Laboratory. Bailey is interested in how various aspects of our daily lives affect how the brain functions to perform and adapt to complex cognitive functions necessary for memory, learning, and language. Specifically, her interests are how stressors and other biological components impact memory and language processing. In more applied settings, Bailey has completed research on traumatic brain injuries' influence on lexical-semantic processing and mental health internalizing symptoms. Recently, her research has been interested in how modern-day stressors and survival processing play a role in our memory. Her research will continue to investigate the short- and long-term effects of stress and brain injuries on cognitive functioning and language processing.  

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