Julie Fiez, Marc Coutanche, and Corrine Durisko's study published in the Journal of the Society of Neuroscience has been featured in the May 17 PittWire article "Researchers Teach Adults to Read Using Pictures of Houses."
May 17, 2019
Julie Fiez
Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of Neuroscience
Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychology
Senior Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center
Lab
Education and Training
PhD, Washington University at St. Louis
Research Interests
My lab relies upon a broad-based and interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscience approach to address questions that fall within two predominant strands of research. One strand is focused on the neural basis of language processing. Topics of interest include the articulatory and phonological codes involved in verbal working memory, and the ways in which different writing systems influence the representation and processing of orthographic information. A second strand is focused on basic learning systems in the human brain. We are especially interested in how cognition may be optimized by reinforcement learning signals mediated by the basal ganglia and error-correction signals mediated by the cerebellum.
Related Research Areas
Recent Publications
Guediche, S., & Fiez, J.A. (2021) Comprehension of morse code predicted by item recall from short-term memory. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Chrabaszcz, A., Wang, D., Lipski, W.J., Bush, A., Crammond, D.J., Shaiman, S., Dickey, M.W., Holt, L.L., Turner, R.S., Fiez, J.A., Richardson R.M. (2021). Subthalamic nucleus and perisylvian cortical regions differentially encode lexicality during a reading aloud task. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 60.
Hirshorn, E.A., Simcox, T., Durisko, C., Perfetti, C.A., & Fiez JA. (2020). Unmasking individual differences in adult reading procedures by disrupting holistic orthographic perception. PLoS One, 15(5), e0233041.
Cox, K.M. & Fiez, J.A. (2020). Abstract inference of unchosen option values. Eur J Neurosci, 51(3), 909-921.
Ben-Yehudah G., Hirshorn E. A., Simcox T., Perfetti C. A., & Fiez J. A. (2019). Chinese-English bilinguals transfer L1 lexical reading procedures and holistic orthographic coding to L2 English. Journal of Neurolinguistics. 50:136-148
News and Awards
Julie Fiez is quoted in the January 18 Scientific American article, "The Cerebellum Is Your 'Little Brain'—and It Does Some Pretty Big Things."
January 18, 2019
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded one of only 19 grants given to cross-disciplinary teams across the United States to Melissa Libertus (P.I.), Associate Professor, Psychology, Marc Coutanche, Assistant Professor, Psychology, and Julie Fiez, Professor, Psychology, Neuroscience, CNBC and Communication Sciences and Disorders, to conduct innovative research on neural and cognitive systems.
August 8, 2017
Julie Fiez is a Co-Director of the Behavioral Brain (B2) Research Training Program along with Lori Holt of Carnegie Mellon University. B2 has been renewed for five more years of funding by the National Institutes of Health. This program aims to train the next generation of behavioral science researchers who can skillfully incorporate neuroscience perspectives and methods into their programs of research, based on an understanding of brain structure and function that bridges traditional areas of behavioral research.
June 5, 2017
Principal Investigator Jana Iverson and co-PIs Julie Fiez, Adjunct Faculty, University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and LRDC Senior Scientist, Melissa Libertus, Associate Professor, Psychology, and LRDC Research Scientist, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, Assistant Professor, Psychology, and LRDC Center Associate were awarded an APA grant for Summer Undergraduate Psychology Research Experience (SUPRE) in May 2017.
May 2017
![[Person photo]](/people/images/fiez_j.jpg)
Contact
522 MURDC
(412) 624-7078