Research in our lab is concerned with two general topics: language and executive control. We employ the methods of neuropsychology, electrophysiology, and combinations of the two. Neuropsychology is the experimental study of the cognitive abilities of patients with acquired brain damage, whereas electrophysiology refers to the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) to gain insight into the neural bases of cognition.

Language and aphasia

• Acquired disorders of reading (alexia) and writing (agraphia)
• Relationships between morphological, phonological, and semantic processing in aphasia
• Perceptual and propositional approaches to conceptual representation
• Executive components of language

Executive control and frontal lobe functions

• The anterior cingulate cortex and executive control
• Relationships between executive function and emotion
• Electrophysiological measures of error monitoring (the ERN and Feedback Negativity)

Teaching Interests:
Cognitive neuroscience.

Courses Taught:
NSC 223 Cognitive Neuroscience

Publications:

Swick, D., Senkfor, A., & Van Petten, C. (2006). Source memory retrieval is affected by aging and prefrontal lesions: behavioral and ERP evidence. Brain Research 1107: 161-176.

Larsen, J., Baynes, K., & Swick, D. (2004). Right hemisphere reading mechanisms in a global alexic patient. Neuropsychologia 1459-1476.

Swick, D., Miller, K.M., & Larsen, J. (2004). Auditory repetition priming is impaired in pure alexic patients. Brain and Language 89: 543-553.

Ashley, V., Vuilleumier, P., & Swick, D. (2004). Time course and specificity of event-related potentials to emotional expressions. NeuroReport 15: 211-216.

Miller, K.M. & Swick, D. (2003). Orthography influences the perception of speech in alexic patients. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 15: 981-990.

Turken, A.U., Vuilleumier, P., Mathalon, D.H., Swick, D., & Ford, J.M. (2003). Are impairments of action monitoring and executive control true dissociative dysfunctions in patients with schizophrenia? American Journal of Psychiatry 160: 1881-1883.

Swick, D. & Turken, A.U. (2002). Dissociation between conflict detection and error monitoring in the human anterior cingulate cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 16354-16359.

Swick, D. & Jovanovich, J. (2002). Anterior cingulate cortex and the Stroop task: Neuropsychological evidence for topographic specificity. Neuropsychologia 40: 1240-1253.

Thompson-Schill, S.L., Jonides, J., Marshuetz, C., Smith, E.E., D'Esposito, M., Kan, I.P., Knight, R.T., & Swick, D. (2002). Effects of frontal lobe damage on interference effects in working memory. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 2: 109-120.

Vuilleumier, P., Hazeltine, E., Sagiv, N., Poldrack, R.A., Swick, D., Rafal, R.D., & Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2001). Neural fate of seen and unseen faces in visuospatial neglect: A combined event-related fMRI and ERP study. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98: 3495-3500.

Turken, A.U. & Swick, D. (1999). Response selection in the human anterior cingulate cortex. Nature Neuroscience 2: 920-924.