ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
ASSOCIATE CHAIR
PHD PROGRAM COORDINATOR
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, LOWELL
MEGAN H. PAPESH
I'm an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at UMass Lowell, having previously held that title at both Louisiana State University and New Mexico State University. I think I only need the Pacific Northwest to achieve regional bingo (I'm from the Midwest), but I'm going to walk away with the chips I have.
My lab investigates human cognitive processes, including the dynamics of episodic memory creation and retrieval (and how those memories influence visual attention), unfamiliar face perception/recognition, and the influence of contextual statistics and LC-NE system activity on attention and perception. We approach these topics using convergent techniques; we use classic behavioral paradigms, but also more modern tools, including eye-tracking, mouse-tracking, pupillometry, and single-unit recording. Our overarching goal is to develop a richer theoretical and applied understanding of the processes by which episodic memory influences real-time cognitive processes.
Please note: This website is (perpetually) under construction.
SOME RECENT (ACCEPTED/PUBLISHED) RESEARCH
See the Cool New Stuff page for not-yet-published items!
We finally finished an edited volume all about modern takes on pupillometry research. Since the early 2000s, pupillometry research has surged in popularity. Although many researchers have written helpful reviews and tutorials, the only compiled resource was published in the 1970s. We brought together researchers with expertise across many psychological, neurophysiological, and quantitative domains to put together a book that we hope helps guide and inspire new pupillometry research. Section 1 explores the neurophysiological basis of task-evoked pupillary responses, Section 2 explores the use of pupillometry in psychological science, and Section 3 provides in-depth discussions and tutorials for pupillary analysis. I am so grateful to all of our contributing authors for their excellent chapters!
We (Del Sordo & Papesh, 2026) recently published a paper at Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience investigating the tradeoff between exploration and exploitation in a novel complex card matching task. In this task, people complete a puzzle-like task inspired by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task while we track their pupillary dynamics. During one block, learning the rule to solve the puzzle was relatively easy, but in the other, it was more challenging. Once the rule was learned and exploited, we then switched the rule. As you can see in the figure to the right, pupillary dynamics nicely tracked decision states as participants dynamically shifted between exploration of the problem space and exploitation of a known rule.
Recently accepted at Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, we (Del Sordo et al., in press) tested a new way to think about sustained attention. Historically, sustained attention has often been discussed as synonymous with vigilance -- the ability to remain cognitively ready to respond to important, albeit infrequent, events over time. We hypothesized that sustained attention is better characterized by two distinct modes, the active and passive mode. To test this, we modified a classic multiple-object tracking paradigm, which is a rather "active" sustained attention task, to include a "passive" version (see left). Behavioral and psychophysiological data confirm our hypothesis: Active and passive sustained attention are distinct forms of sustained attention.