Aly Lab Menu Bar
How does the brain transform experiences into memories,
and how does memory influence experience?
We study how attention and perception affect what we remember, and
how memory can in turn guide our attention, perception, and goal-directed behavior.
the latest news
The Aly Lab is now at the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley!!
We'll be recruiting, so please get in touch if you are interested in joining the lab! Prospective PhD students can check out this FAQ (we will be looking at applications this Fall).
What makes an image memorable?
Congratulations to Chey for their new paper (in press at Behavior Research Methods)! They investigate the relationship between how an image makes us feel and how memorable it is. Check out the paper and the VAMOS image set on our Publications page!
How does the brain represent temporal structure over multiple timescales?
Congrats to Hannah for her innovative paper showing hierarchical and graded representations of the past and future across the visual system! The paper is now published in Nature Communications; check it out on our Publications page!
How do we balance encoding the present and predicting the future?
Check out an intriguing new preprint by Craig, Hannah, Raheema, and Edoardo! Across three behavioral studies, they show that encoding and prediction cooperate rather than compete.
Find the paper on our Publications page!
How do our predictions change over days and weeks?
Congrats to Hannah on her exciting paper exploring how multistep anticipation is
transformed over periods of memory consolidation!
The paper is published in Psychological Science and you can find it on our Publications page.
How do attentional fluctuations affect memory organization?
Congratulations to Manasi for her paper showing that pupil size at encoding predicts the temporal structure of subsequent memory! Check out her preprint on our Publications page.
Why are some people so good at learning and remembering obscure facts?
Trivia experts seem to be particularly good at linking new semantic knowledge to memory for the learning experience! Congrats to Monica and Lauren on their paper (in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review), which is featured in Scientific American! Check out the paper under our Publications tab, and keep your eyes open for some insights from Ken Jennings!
How do we resolve competition between similar memories to behave adaptively?
Congratulations to Serra for her new preprint showing that hippocampal differentiation of competing memories reduces competition in visual cortex during memory-guided attention.
Check it out on our Publications page!
our philosophy
We like to do good science and have fun. At the same time, but also separately.
We are strongly committed to providing a positive, supportive lab environment.
To learn more, read our lab manual and browse our lab wiki.