Dr. Launa Leboe-mcgowan

Biography

Education: Ph.D., 2009, University of Manitoba   Perceptual Illusions in the Auditory Domain     M.A., 2006, University of Manitoba   Item-Specific Congruency Effects in Nonverbal Auditory Stroop     B.A., 1997, Simon Fraser University

Research Interest

Cognitive illusions have provided an essential basis for understanding cognitive processes across a range of contexts. Such sources of error in the performance of cognitive tasks have been fundamental in instructing researchers about mechanisms underlying low-level perceptual experience, remembering, and judgment and decision-making. Essential for illuminating inefficiencies in human cognitive abilities, this research has also provided clues about basic cognitive mechanisms. One important outcome of adopting a research focus that emphasizes cognitive illusions is that human cognitive processing does not directly make contact with either the sensory environment or representations of prior experience. Instead, at least in part, all aspects of cognitive processing reflect an imperfect construction of reality. In the case of auditory perceptual experience, an appreciation of this role of constructive processes must complement the more traditional approach of treating the perception of simple sounds and sound sequences as guided mainly by low-level processing of sensory input. My research balances the more typical emphasis on bottom-up processes of auditory perception by providing an investigation of top-down sources of error in perception of the spatial location, duration and intensity of auditory and visual events. Because my goal is to obtain novel insights into fundamental cognitive processes, the knowledge gained from my research program will have broad applicability across a diversity of fields. For example, in contexts for which the difference between life and death depends on responding effectively to rapidly changing circumstances, impairments of perception threaten human safety in domains ranging from air travel to emergency medicine.