Deborah Hannula
hannula@uwm.eduGarland Hall 202C, , , ,

Deborah Hannula

Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Psychology Associate Chair
Psychology

Dr. Hannula will recruit a new graduate student for Fall 2025 admission to the Neuroscience PhD program.

Web Site: https://sites.google.com/view/hannula-lab/home

Degree:

Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2005

Courses Taught:

  • Psych 611/711: Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Psych 611: Visual Cognition

Research Interests:

Research conducted in my lab is designed to investigate the cognitive processes and neural substrates of human memory. At the broadest level, my research is best characterized by three overarching themes:

  1. investigations of the link between indirect, eye-movement-based memory measures and behavioral reports/awareness;
  2. characterization of the time-course and neural substrates of relational memory retrieval; and
  3. investigations of medial temporal lobe (MTL) contributions to performance on short-term or working memory tests.

Particular emphasis is also placed on examining the contributions of anatomically distinct MTL structures to memory for items vs. memory for inter-item relationships.

These issues are addressed with multiple research methods, including behavioral, eye-movement, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in neurologically intact subjects and amnesic patients with MTL damage. It is our hope that this research might ultimately contribute to new directions in the diagnosis and treatment of memory impairment that is evident in so many psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia, depression) and neurological (e.g., traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke) conditions.

Selected Publications

Nickel, A. E., Hopkins, L. S., Minor, G. N., & Hannula, D. E.(2020) Attention capture by episodic memory.Cognition, 201(104312), 1-21.
Hannula, D. E.(2018) Attention and long-term memory: bidirectional interactions and their effects on behavior.The Psychology of Learning & Motivation, 69, 285-323.
Mahoney, E. J., Kapur, N. , Osmon, D. C., & Hannula, D. E.(2018) Eye tracking as a tool for the detection of simulated memory impairment.Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
Wuethrich, S. , Hannula, D. E., Mast, F. W., & Henke, K. (2018) Subliminal encoding and flexible retrieval of objects in scenes.Hippocampus, 28(9), 633-643.
Hannula, D. E., Ryan, J. D., & Warren, D. E.(2017) Beyond long-term declarative memory: evaluating hippocampal contributions to unconscious memory expression, perception, and short-term retention.Hannula, D. E., & Duff, M. C.(Eds). The Hippocampus from Cells to Systems, 281-336. Springer/Nature.
(2017) The Hippocampus from Cells to Systems: Structure, Connectivity, and Functional Contributions to Memory and Flexible Cognition.Hannula, D. E., Duff, M. C., & Duff, M. C.(Eds). 589. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Hopkins, L. S., Helmstetter, F. J., & Hannula, D. E.(2016) Eye movements are captured by a perceptually simple conditioned stimulus in the absence of explicit contingency knowledge.Emotion, 16, 1157-1171.
Ragland, J. D., Layher, E. , Hannula, D. E., Niendam, T. A., Lesh, T. A., Solomon, M. , Carter, C. , & Ranganath, C. (2016) Impact of schizophrenia on anterior and posterior hippocampus during memory for complex scenes.Neuroimage Clinical, 13.
Cooper, R. A., Plaisted-Grant, K. C., Hannula, D. E., Ranganath, C. , Baron-Cohen, S. , & Simons, J. S.(2015) Impaired recollection of visual scene details in adults with autism spectrum conditions.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 124(3).
Nickel, A. E., Henke, K. , & Hannula, D. E.(2015) Relational memory is evident in eye movement behavior despite the use of subliminal testing methods.PlosOne, 29(10).
Hopkins, L. S., Schultz, D. H., Hannula, D. E., & Helmstetter, F. J.(2015) Eye movements index implicit memory expression in fear conditioning.PLoS ONE, 10.
Elaine, M. J., & Hannula, D. E.(2014) Fractionation of memory in patient populations: Causes, consequences, and conceptualization of memory disorders.Perspectives on Neurophysiology and Neurogenic Speech and Language Disorders, 24, 50-63.
Libby, L. A., Hannula, D. E., & Ranganath, C. (2014) Medial temporal lobe coding of item and spatial information during relational binding in working memory.Journal of Neuroscience, 34, 14233-14242.
Hannula, D. E., Libby, L. , Yonelinas, A. , & Ranganath, C. (2013) Medial temporal lobe contributions to cued retrieval of items and context.Neuropsychologia, 51, 2322-2332.
Hannula, D. E., Baym, C. L., Warren, D. E., & Cohen, N. J.(2012) The Eyes Know: Eye Movements as a Veridical Index of Prior Exposure.Psychological Science, 23, 278-287.
Hannula, D. E., & Greene, A. J.(2012) The hippocampus reevaluated in automatic and unconscious expressions of memory: At a tipping point?.Voss, J. (Ed). Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6(Article 80), 1-20.
Hannula, D. E., Althoff, R. R., Warren, D. E., Riggs, L. , Cohen, N. J., & Ryan, J. D.(2010) Worth a Glance: Using Eye Movements to Investigate the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Article 166, 1-16.
Hannula, D. E., & Ranganath, C. (2009) The Eyes Have It: Hippocampal Activity Predicts Expression of Memory in Eye Movements.Neuron, 63, 592-599.
Hannula, D. E., & Ranganath, C. (2008) Medial Temporal Lobe Activity Predicts Successful Relational Memory Binding.Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 116-124.
Hannula, D. E., Ryan, J. D., Tranel, D. , & Cohen, N. J.(2007) Rapid Onset Relational Memory Effects are Evident in Eye Movement Behavior, but not in Hippocampal Amnesia.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1690-1705.