Positions

Overview

  • Dr. Mirman received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Psychology from Cornell University in 2000 and his PhD in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon University and the interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscience program in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. His doctoral work combined behavioral experiments and computational modeling to study how auditory perception and language knowledge interact during speech perception. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Connecticut where he learned eye-tracking methods for on-line measurement of speech comprehension and began to study how knowledge of concepts is organized in the mind. In 2009 he joined the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute (MRRI) where he began his research on the neural organization of spoken language processing in individuals with language deficits following stroke (aphasia). From 2013 to 2016 he was on the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Drexel University while continuing his work at MRRI. He joined the faculty of Department of Psychology at University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2016.

    • Selected Publications

    Academic Article

    Year Title Altmetric
    2020 GazeR: A Package for Processing Gaze Position and Pupil Size Data 2020
    2019 Naming and Knowing Revisited: Eyetracking Correlates of Anomia in Progressive Aphasia 2019
    2019 Mapping articulatory and grammatical subcomponents of fluency deficits in post-stroke aphasia 2019
    2019 Sex, Age, and Handedness Modulate the Neural Correlates of Active Learning 2019
    2019 Impaired lexical selection and fluency in post-stroke aphasia 2019
    2019 Words fail: Lesion-symptom mapping of errors of omission in post-stroke aphasia 2019
    2019 Estimating effects of graded white matter damage and binary tract disconnection on post-stroke language impairment 2019
    2019 Learning to drive: A reconceptualization 2019
    2019 Lifting cognition: a meta-analysis of effects of resistance exercise on cognition 2019
    2018 Uncovering the Neuroanatomy of Core Language Systems Using Lesion-Symptom Mapping 2018
    2018 Interaction in spoken word recognition models: Feedback helps 2018
    2018 The cost of switching between taxonomic and thematic semantics 2018
    2018 Relative contributions of lesion location and lesion size to predictions of varied language deficits in post-stroke aphasia 2018
    2017 All you need to do is ask? The exhortation to be creative improves creative performance more for nonexpert than expert Jazz musicians 2017
    2017 Cross-situational word learning in aphasia 2017
    2017 Taxonomic and thematic semantic systems 2017
    2016 Discourse comprehension in autism spectrum disorder: Effects of working memory load and common ground 2016
    2016 Anodal tDCS to right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex facilitates performance for novice jazz improvisers but hinders experts 2016
    2016 Distinct effects of lexical and semantic competition during picture naming in younger adults, older adults, and people with aphasia 2016
    2016 Novel word acquisition in aphasia: Facing the word-referent ambiguity of natural language learning contexts 2016
    2016 The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex facilitates processing of sentential context to locate referents 2016
    2015 The ins and outs of meaning: Behavioral and neuroanatomical dissociation of semantically-driven word retrieval and multimodal semantic recognition in aphasia 2015
    2015 Converging evidence from fMRI and aphasia that the left temporoparietal cortex has an essential role in representing abstract semantic knowledge 2015
    2015 Neural organization of spoken language revealed by lesion-symptom mapping 2015
    2015 Interaction between phonological and semantic representations: Time matters 2015
    2014 What we talk about when we talk about access deficits 2014
    2014 Abnormal dynamics of activation of object use information in apraxia: Evidence from eyetracking 2014
    2014 Effect of repetition proportion on language-driven anticipatory eye movements 2014
    2014 Interactive activation and mutual constraint satisfaction in perception and cognition 2014
    2013 Incidental and context-responsive activation of structure-and function-based action features during object identification 2013
    2013 Effects of phonological and semantic deficits on facilitative and inhibitory consequences of item repetition in spoken word comprehension 2013
    2013 Gaze fluctuations are not additively decomposable: Reply to Bogartz and Staub 2013
    2013 Linking language and categorization: Evidence from aphasia 2013
    2013 The Neural Basis of Inhibitory Effects of Semantic and Phonological Neighbors in Spoken Word Production 2013
    2012 Competition and cooperation among similar representations: Toward a unified account of facilitative and inhibitory effects of lexical neighbors 2012
    2012 Individual differences in the strength of taxonomic versus thematic relations 2012
    2012 Temporal dynamics of activation of thematic and functional knowledge during conceptual processing of manipulable artifacts 2012
    2012 Categorization is modulated by transcranial direct current stimulation over left prefrontal cortex 2012
    2012 Damage to temporo-parietal cortex decreases incidental activation of thematic relations during spoken word comprehension 2012
    2012 A combination of thematic and similarity-based semantic processes confers resistance to deficit following left hemisphere stroke 2012
    2012 Eye movement dynamics and cognitive self-organization in typical and atypical development 2012
    2012 Multifractal Dynamics in the Emergence of Cognitive Structure 2012
    2011 Neuroanatomical dissociation for taxonomic and thematic knowledge in the human brain 2011
    2011 Theories of spoken word recognition deficits in Aphasia: Evidence from eye-tracking and computational modeling 2011
    2011 Effects of near and distant semantic neighbors on word production 2011
    2010 A large, searchable, web-based database of aphasic performance on picture naming and other tests of cognitive function 2010
    2010 Computational modeling of statistical learning: Effects of Transitional probability versus frequency and links to word learning 2010
    2010 Interactions dominate the dynamics of visual cognition 2010
    2010 Effect of representational distance between meanings on recognition of ambiguous spoken words 2010
    2009 Dynamics of activation of semantically similar concepts during spoken word recognition 2009
    2009 The effect of frequency of shared features on judgments of semantic similarity 2009
    2009 Lévy-like diffusion in eye movements during spoken-language comprehension 2009
    2008 Mechanisms of semantic ambiguity resolution: Insights from speech perception 2008
    2008 Statistical and computational models of the visual world paradigm: Growth curves and individual differences 2008
    2008 The link between statistical segmentation and word learning in adults 2008
    2008 Effects of attention on the strength of lexical influences on speech perception: Behavioral experiments and computational mechanisms 2008
    2008 Attractor Dynamics and Semantic Neighborhood Density: Processing Is Slowed by Near Neighbors and Speeded by Distant Neighbors 2008
    2006 Response to McQueen et al.: Theoretical and empirical arguments support interactive processing 2006
    2006 Are there interactive processes in speech perception? 2006
    2006 An interactive Hebbian account of lexically guided tuning of speech perception 2006
    2005 Computational and behavioral investigations of lexically induced delays in phoneme recognition 2005
    2004 Categorization and discrimination of nonspeech sounds: Differences between steady-state and rapidly-changing acoustic cues 2004
    2001 Retroactive interference in neural networks and in humans: The effect of pattern-based learning 2001
    Cognitive Control in Semantic Memory
    GazeR: A Package for Processing Gaze Position and Pupil Size Data
    GazeR: A Package for Processing Gaze Position and Pupil Size Data: Revised and Resubmitted
    White Matter Tract Disconnection

    Book

    Year Title Altmetric
    2014 Growth Curve Analysis and Visualization Using R 2014

    Chapter

    Year Title Altmetric
    2016 Zones of proximal development for models of spoken word recognition.  97-115. 2016

    Research Overview

  • The Language & Cognitive Dynamics Laboratory seeks to understand the basic mechanisms of cognitive and perceptual processing, particularly in the domain of spoken language. We focus on spoken language because it is at the intersection of basic perceptual and higher-level cognitive processing – drawing on both and elucidating the core principles that span all of cognitive function. We use behavioral, eye-tracking, computational modeling, and lesion-symptom mapping techniques and focus on impairments of language processing in order to test and develop theories of typical language processing, to understand how they break down under impairments, and to develop better rehabilitation strategies.

    Current projects examine (1) The processing and representation of semantic knowledge, particularly knowledge of object features and categories vs. the events or situations in which they participate. (2) The organization of the spoken language system by mapping the relationships between stroke lesion location and behavioral deficits. (3) Factors that influence learning and recovery of language function in post-stroke aphasia.

    Language processing, semantic memory, computational models of brain and cognition, language and cognitive disorders

    • Investigator On

    Full Name

  • Daniel Mirman