Collaborative efforts with colleagues at the RII include research into neuro-cognitive changes in children with attention deficit disorder (Principal Investigator Steven Pliszka, MD) and language-experience effects on pitch discrimination (Co-investigator Shalini Narayana, MD, PhD). In addition, Dr. Wicha collaborates through the RII with colleagues from Texas State University, Dr. Reiko Graham, who is investigating how humans process emotional facial expression and gaze direction, and Drs. Graham and Natalie Ceballos, who are investigating the role of alcohol consumption on cognitive and attentional processing
Education
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2002 |
University of California at San Diego, CA |
Ph.D. (Cognitive Science) |
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1998 |
University of California at San Diego, CA |
M.S. (Cognitive Science) |
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1993 |
University of Texas at San Antonio, TX |
B.A. (Spanish) |
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1993 |
University of Texas at San Antonio, TX |
B.A. (Psychology) |
Research Interests
Dr. Wicha’s research interests lie in uncovering the neural correlates for cognition. Her current research focuses on language comprehension in monolingual and bilingual populations. She works to better understand how we interpret meaning and structure in words and sentences, and as bilinguals how we are able to perform such complicated tasks as switching back and forth between two languages during a conversation. Dr. Wicha uses event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures as her primary research techniques. Collaborative efforts with colleagues at the RII include research into neuro-cognitive changes in children with attention deficit disorder (Principal Investigator Steven Pliszka, MD; David Glahn, PhD) and language-experience effects on pitch discrimination (Co-investigator Shalini Narayana, MD).
Recent Publications
1. Salillas, E. and Wicha, N.Y.Y. (under review). Early learning shapes the memory networks for arithmetic: Evidence from brain potentials in bilinguals. Psychological Science.
2. Graham, R., Giuliano, R.J., Wicha, N.Y.Y. and Ceballos, N.A. (submitted). Self-reported alcohol use expectancies and the effects of stress on event-related potentials to alcohol-related scenes. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
3. Rivera, S.M., Bates, E.A., Orozco-Figueroa, A. and Wicha, N.Y.Y. (2010). “Spoken Verb Processing in Spanish: An Analysis Using a New Online Database”. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 29-57.
4. Giuliano, R.J. and Wicha, N.Y.Y. (2010). Why the white bear is still there: ERP evidence for ironic semantic activation during thought suppression. Brain Research, 1316, 62-74.
5. Wicha, N. Y. Y., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Reyes, I., Hernandez, A., Gavaldón de Barreto, L. & Bates, E. A., (2005). When zebras become painted donkeys: Grammatical gender and semantic priming interact during picture integration in a spoken Spanish sentence. Language & Cognitive Processes, 20(4), 553-587.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2003). Expecting gender: an event related brain potential study onthe role of grammatical gender in comprehending a line drawing within a written sentence in Spanish. Cortex, 39(3), 483-508.
10. 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.
11. 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.
Books and Chapters
1. Kutas, M., Moreno, E.M., & Wicha, N.Y.Y. (2009). Code-Switching and the Brain. In B. Bullock and A.J. Toribio, (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Teaching
Dr. Wicha teaches Cognitive Neuroscience and Human Electrophysiology as graduate-level courses cross-listed at UTSA and UTHSCSA. Cognitive Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of mind and brain. Students learn about converging methodologies (e.g., neuropsychology, psychophysics and neuroimaging) for understanding the brain basis of cognition (e.g., memory, aging, language, perception). Human Electrophysiology focuses on imaging techniques – specifically event-related brain potentials – used to observe changes in electrical brain activity related to cognition. Students learn hands-on the usefulness and limitations of these techniques for answering questions about the mind and brain. Both courses are open to motivated upper-division undergraduate students.
Recent Honors and Awards
2002 |
Postdoctoral Training Grant Fellowship- Institute of Neural Computation National Institute for Health
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1998 |
Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA)- National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders |
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1998 |
Graduate Research Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience- McDonnell-Pew Foundation |
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1995 |
Graduate Research Fellow in Neuroscience- American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program |
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1995 |
Honorable Mention Maîtrise Thesis- L'Université de Renè Descartes, Paris, France |
