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Faculty |
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Nicole Y. Y. Wicha, Ph.D. Office: (210) 458-7013 |
Office: (210) 567-8016 |
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• Cognitive and neural bases of human language • Human brain imaging techniques, such as Event
Related Brain Potentials (ERP) Dr. Wicha's research focuses on understanding how the brain
processes language Dr. Wicha is also involved in collaborative efforts that use a cognitive neuroscience approach to study various populations. These include work on how language experience changes basic perception of pitch and tone with Drs. Shalini Narayana (UTHSCSA) and Peter Pfordresher (SUNY Buffalo), how stutterers process sound with Drs. Roger and Jan Ingham (UCSB), processing of facial emotion with Dr. Reiko Graham (Texas State University) and how executive function is affected in children with ADHD with Dr. Steven Pliszka (UTHSCSA). She is also beginning a collaborative effort with Dr. Swathi Kiran, director of the Aphasia Lab at UT Austin, to analyze language comprehension and executive control in bilingual aphasics. Dr. Wicha holds a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of California at San Diego, where she received interdisciplinary training in behavioral, computational and brain imaging techniques for addressing questions in Cognitive Neuroscience. She continued her training in Cognitive Neuroscience through the Institute of Neural Computation in La Jolla, California as a post-doctoral fellow. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and holds a cross appointment with the University of Texas Health Science Center through the Research Imaging Center, where she is also the Chief of the ERP laboratory. Dr. Wicha shares with her students her expertise in ERP methodology, experimental training and knowledge of research in cognitive neuroscience, through teaching and laboratory mentorship. Employment 2005-current Assistant Professor, Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio 2005-current
Chief, Event Related Potentials Lab, Research Imaging Center,
University of Texas Health Science Center 2002-2004 PostDoctoral Fellow, Institute of Neural Computation, La Jolla, CA Training 2002 Ph.D., Cognitive Science, University of California at San Diego 1995 Maîtrise Thesis, Experimental Psychology, Rene Descartes University, Paris, France 1994 B.A., Psychology, and B.A., Spanish, University of Texas at San Antonio Teaching Human Electrophysiology Cognitive Neuroscience Recent Publications Wicha, N. Y. Y., Bates, E. A., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Reyes, I., Hernandez, A., & Gavaldón de Barreto, L. (2005). When zebras become painted donkeys: The interplay between gender and semantic priming in a Spanish sentence context. Language & Cognitive Processes, 20(4), 553-587. Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2004). Anticipating words and their gender: An event-related brain potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy and gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7), 1272-1288. Szekely, A., Jacobsen, T., D'Amico, S., Devescovi, A., Andonova, E., Herron, D., Lu, C.C., Pechman, T., Pléh, C., Wicha, N., Federmeier, K., Gerdjikova, I., Gutierrrez, G., Hung, D., Hsu, J., Iyer, G., Kohnert, K., Mehotcheva, T., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Tzeng, A., Tzeng, O., Arévalo, A., Vargha, A., Butler, A., Buffington, R., & Bates, E. (2004). A new on-line resource for psycholinguistic studies. Journal of Memory and Language, 51(2), 247-250. Wicha, N. Y. Y., Bates, E. A., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2003). Potato not Pope: human brain potentials to gender expectation and agreement in Spanish spoken sentences. Neuroscience Letters, 346(3), 165-168. Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2003). Expecting gender: an event related brain potential study on the role of grammatical gender in comprehending a line drawing within a written sentence in Spanish. Cortex, 39(3), 483-508. Bentrovato, S., Devescovi, A., D'Amico, S., Wicha, N., & Bates, E. (2003). The effect of grammatical gender and semantic context on lexical access in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(4), 417-430. Bates, E., D'Amico, S., Jacobsen, T., Szekely, A., Andonova, E., Devescovi, A., Herron, D., Lu, C. C., Pechmann, T., Pleh, C., Wicha, N., Federmeier, K., Gerdjikova, I., Gutierrez, G., Hung, D., Hsu, J., Iyer, G., Kohnert, K., Mehotcheva, T., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Tzeng, A., & Tzeng, O. (2003). Timed picture naming in seven languages. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10(2), 344-380.
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Research Interests