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Robin Morris received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1990 and accepted her current appointment at the University of South Carolina in the Experimental Program directly following her graduate training. Since that time she has established an eye movement research laboratory exploring the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in adult skilled reading behavior. This research laboratory has been funded by the National Science Foundation, as well as, various university research grants. Graduate students are actively engaged in all aspects of the research program. The two most recent publications listed below are the result of graduate student thesis projects.

Reading is a highly complex cognitive skill, and yet it is a skill that all citizens of a contemporary society are expected to master. It is a skill that involves complex perceptual processes, precise allocation of visual attention, fine motor control, and sophisticated language and memory processes. Thus, it provides a rich and varied field of inquiry for a cognitive psychologist. However, it is also an activity that does not involve many easily observable overt behaviors. By monitoring readers eye movements we have been able to pinpoint precise locations and sources of information that is critical to some aspect of processing and to describe the time course of that processing. By monitoring readers eye movements we are able to observe the moment-to-moment processing activities that make up the reading process.

Dr. Morris's interest in the use of eye movement measures to study cognitive processing is twofold:

The eye movement laboratory is actively engaged in the study of perceptual processing in reading and its relation to attention and eye movement control. In order to use eye movement measures to study cognitive processing it is crucial that we understand the relationship between when and where a reader directs their gaze and the cognitive processes associated with the reading process.

The second area of research concentration in the lab is word processing in reading. This research has focussed primarily on defining contextual factors that influence word processing and to determine when those effects occur.
 

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Recent Publications

 

Last update: 07/22/00