Dr. Madan gave an invited talk at the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC).

Three new PhD students started today! Welcome Yashoda Gopi, Liling Jin, and Ruochong Zhang–all co-supervised with Prof. Ed Wilding.

Dr. Madan was interviewed for ecrLife.

What do you think about the current publication trend?

What do you think of preprint servers? Do you think they are useful?

Do you think science is communicated well to non-scientists? What are some ways to improve science communication?

As we know, there are more PhD’s graduating every year as compared to available tenure track positions. Do you think there is way to improve this?

What are alternative career options for young scientists apart from applying for tenure track positions?

Dr Christopher Madan was the September 2018 Teaching Innovation & Learning Enhancement (TILE) network speaker on the topic of “Understanding How We Remember”. A student’s reflections on the talk.

Large collaborative project to examine the influence of data analysis decisions on experimental results, now published in Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. Also see coverage in FiveThirtyEight, “Science Isn’t Broken”, and APS Observer, “How Researchers Can Find Different Results Using the Same Data”.

“To pursue research, education, and health policy in one’s career, broadly defined as academic medicine, is one of the most important decisions of a trainee doctor’s career. Despite this, there is scant literature on which factors influence trainees’ choices towards clinical work or academic research.”

“Cortical morphology is known to differ with age, as measured by cortical thickness, fractal dimensionality, and gyrification. However, head motion during MRI scanning has been shown to influence estimates of cortical thickness as well as increase with age. Studies have also found task-related differences in head motion and relationships between body–mass index (BMI) and head motion.”

Come to the APA convention in August! Dr. Madan organized a symposium on ‘Motivated Memory and Event Cognition’ (as part of Division 3’s program).

New paper with Penny Pexman and colleagues at the University of Calgary.

“In the present study, we collected ratings for 621 words on seven semantic dimensions (graspability, ease of pantomime, number of actions, animacy, size, danger, and usefulness), in order to investigate which attributes are most strongly related to BOI ratings and to lexical–semantic processing.”

“Novel methods are needed to further our understanding of human brain structure. However, along with the development of methods come additional considerations to interpret these findings and avoid potential confounds. In this workshop I will provide an overview of the mathematical principles behind novel approaches to computational neuroanatomy, with an emphasis on fractal dimensionality and spherical harmonics.”

New paper with Elizabeth Kensinger (Boston College).

“The influence of emotion on association-memory is often attributed to arousal, but negative stimuli are typically used to test for these effects. While prior studies of negative emotion on association-memory have found impairments, theories suggest that positive emotion may have a distinct effect on memory, and may lead to enhanced association-memory.”

Dr. Madan’s former PhD supervisor and on-going collaborator, is being honored with the Comparative Cognition Society Research Award.

A special issue of Behavioural Processes</a> has also been organised in honor of Marcia’s contributions to the field.