Linda H. Moya
Department of Psychology and
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC)
Heinz School of Public Policy and Management
Carnegie-Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Email: lhmoya@andrew.cmu.edu
Mini-Bio
Linda Moya is currently pursuing her Phd in Cognitive Psychology with an emphasis in Neuroscience.
She is coincidently a Phd candidate ("all but dissertation")
at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. Prior to
pursuing her PhD career,
Linda spent over 17 years in the computer and
telecommunications industries in various middle and executive management
positions at Hewlett-Packard and AT&T. Immediately prior to pursuing her PhD
Linda co-founded a wireless startup that was sold to
Nokia in 2003. She has a Bachelors of Science and Engineering in
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, and a
Masters of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management from Stanford
University. First Career Resume (pdf)
Research Interests
Experience changes the way in which the brain processes incoming information and, in turn,
gives rise to changes in the brain at multiple scales from synaptic alterations to altered
functional topographies. My aim is to develop a research program to investigate the
psychological and neural role of experience in the domain of perception using the methods
of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the rapid progress in our
understanding of neurodevelopment and plasticity in neuroscience, our growing understanding
of animal neurophysiology, the rich literature on cognitive behavioral studies, and the
non-invasive imaging techniques for use with human participants such as functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), the time is ripe to research the
functional consequences of experience on neural development and organization and to identify
relationships to behavior.
Despite the fact that visual scenes contain massive amounts of complex information, humans
organize that information remarkably efficiently to recognize objects and individuals with
ease and accuracy. Furthermore, experience changes perception: top down knowledge interacts
with bottom-up psychophysical information to determine what is cognitively perceived. I am
interested in studying how this is achieved – what are the psychological processes and
representations that underlie abilities such as object segmentation and categorization,
face recognition and differentiation, how these psychological processes may be shaped by
experience, and how these processes interact with incoming perceptual information. For
example, one phenomenon I plan to study is the other-race effect, which refers to the
greater difficulty people have in distinguishing between members of a different race
compared to one’s own race. This is a clear example of people’s
cultural experience determining what is cognitively perceived. While this effect has been
significantly studied in the social and applied sciences, it has only begun to be
investigated in the cognitive sciences. I am interested
in studying these questions within the information-processing framework used in cognitive
psychology using the methods of behavioral and neuropsychological studies, and in
studying the neural mechanisms which enable these complex abilities using the imaging
methods of cognitive neuroscience.
Linda is working with Dr. Marlene Behrmann at CMU and the CNBC.
Committee members include Drs.
Carl Olson,
David Plaut
and
Mark Wheeler.
At the Heinz school Linda trained in the field of behavioral decision research with Dr.
Linda Babcock,
where she conducted research in negotiations, game theory, and experienced utility.
Curriculum Vitae
Recent Professional Activities and Honors (2006 to present)
National Institute of Health -
Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Program (MNTP) Pre-Doctoral Fellow (2007)
National Science Foundation -
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) Award (2006)
Member -
Society for Neuroscience
Member -
Cognitive Neuroscience
Referee,
20th Annual Conference of The International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) (2007)
Referee,
19th Annual Conference of The International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) (2006)
Research Assistant -
Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory - Dr. Marlene Behrmann 2005-2006
Personal
Linda Moya Personal Home Page
Last Updated: July, 2007