Reading Brains Lab
Dartmouth College Department of Education

Publications

Below we have listed some of the studies and projects that we have worked on in the past. Most of our research studies have been published in specialized journals and contain quite a bit of technical jargon. If you have questions about these books, poster presentations, articles, or our research in general, please contact us.

 

Books

Coch, D., Fischer, K.W., & Dawson, G. (Eds.) (2007). Human behavior, learning, and the developing brain: typical development. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Gathering contributions from researchers interested in connecting the behaviors traditionally studied in developmental psychology with neuroscience, brain-behavior relations are considered across infancy, childhood, and adolescence across a variety of domains.
Book published by Guilford Press

Coch, D., Dawson, G., & Fischer, K.W. (Eds.) (2007). Human behavior, learning, and the developing brain: atypical development. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Much of the extant brain-behavior literature has specifically looked at atypical developmental pathways, such as in children with autism, dyslexia, specific language impairment, attention-deficit disorder, dyscalculia, Williams Syndrome, or in children growing up in stressful environments.
Book published by Guilford Press

 

Recent Conference Presentations

Coch, D., & George, E. (2009). Neural and behavioral evidence of working memory differences in musicians and nonmusicians. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting (Poster #5101) is available as a pdf file.

Berger, N., & Coch, D. (2009). DO U TXT?: An event-related potential (ERP) study on the neural processing of Standard English versus Nu English. Poster presented at the 2009 Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

Landers, A., & Coch, D. (2009). Behavioral expression of morphological processing and its relation to reading. Poster presented at the 2009 Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

George, E., & Coch, D. (2009). Neural and behavioral evidence of working memory differences in musicians and non-musicians. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Wetterhahn Undergraduate Science Poster Symposium and the 2009 Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Wetterhahn Poster Symposium and the Psychological and Brain Sciences Honors Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

Landon, J., & Coch, D. (2009). Recording ERP/EEG in the Reading Brains Lab. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Wetterhahn Undergraduate Science Poster Symposium, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Internships, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Wetterhahn (HHMI) Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

Harad, L., & Coch, D. (2009). Remembering abstract vs. concrete words. Poster presented at the 18th Annual Wetterhahn Undergraduate Science Poster Symposium, Women in Science Project (WISP), Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Wetterhahn (WISP) Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

Coch, D., George, E., Mitra, P., Berger, N., & Gullick, M. (2009). An ERP letter name rhyming effect as a measure of phonological processing in children. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 SRCD Conference (Poster Session 3-042, #183) is available as a pdf file.

George, E., & Coch, D. (2009). Working memory in musicians and nonmusicians: neural and behavioral evidence. Poster presented at the 23rd Annual Neuroscience Day at Dartmouth, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2009 Neuroscience Day at Dartmouth is available as a pdf file.

Holroyd, K., & Coch, D. (2008). Do letters rhyme: it's E-Z with ERP. Poster presented at the 17th Annual Wetterhahn Undergraduate Science Poster Symposium, Women in Science Project (WISP), Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA.
Our poster from the 2008 Wetterhahn (WISP) Poster Symposium is available as a pdf file.

Gullick, M.M., George, E., Mitra, P., & Coch, D. (2008). The N200 as an index of orthographic processing in a Reicher-Wheeler paradigm. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, California, USA.
Our poster from the 2008 CNS Conference (Poster Session I122) is available as a pdf file.

Mitra, P., & Coch, D. (2008). Are abstract letter representations indexed by the P260 event-related potential? Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, California, USA.
Our poster from the 2008 CNS Conference (Poster Session C109) is available as a pdf file.

Coch, D. (2007). Through the looking glass: ERPs in an MBE world. Invited talk presented at the Inaugural Conference of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
The text of our invited talk at the 2007 IMBES Conference is available as a pdf file.

Coch, D., Hart, T., & Mitra, P. (2007). The rhyming brain: ERP measures of phonological processing. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Our poster from the 2007 SRCD Conference (Poster Session 2-105, #132) is available as a pdf file.

 

Articles

Mitra, P., & Coch, D. (2009). A masked priming ERP study of letter processing using single letters and false fonts. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 9(2), 216-228.
The results of this study showed that false font stimuli (made up letter-like characters) and single letters elicited similar P260 ERP responses in a masked priming paradigm. This pattern of results suggests that the P260 may not be specific to letter processing.
Article in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
Abstract and pdf at Psychonomics Journals

Coch, D., Michlovitz, S.A., Ansari, D., & Baird, A. (2009). Building mind, brain, and education connections: the view from the Upper Valley. Mind, Brain, and Education, 3(1), 27-33.
This article describes our efforts to build a model for making connections across mind, brain, and education in the local area of the Upper Valley.
Article in Mind, Brain, and Education
Abstract and pdf at Wiley InterScience

Coch, D., George, E., & Berger, N. (2008). The case of letter rhyming: an ERP study. Psychophysiology, 45(6), 949-956.
The results of this study with college students showed that a similar ERP rhyming effect, in terms of amplitude and latency, is elicted by lowercase letter pairs and uppercase letter pairs. This pattern of results suggests that the electrophysiological rhyming effect is not sensitive to physical (case) orthography, but likely primarily indexes phonological processing related to the rhyme task.
Article in Psychophysiology
Abstract and pdf at Wiley InterScience

Stevens, C., Fanning, J., Coch, D., Sanders, L.D., & Neville, H. (2008). Neural mechanisms of selective attention are enhanced by computerized training: electrophysiological evidence from language-impaired and typically developing children. Brain Research, 1205, 55-69.
The results of this study with 6- to 8-year-old children with specific language impairment (SL I) and controls showed that intensive training with a computer program was associated with changes in both an ERP auditory attention effect recorded in a complex dichotic listening paradigm and in behavioral measures of receptive language in the children with SLI.
Article in Brain Research
Abstract and pdf at Science Direct

Coch, D., Hart, T., & Mitra, P. (2008). Three kinds of rhymes: an ERP study. Brain and Language, 104(3), 230-243.
The results of this study with college students showed that a similar visual ERP rhyming effect can be elicited by words, nonwords, and single letters. One of the first reports of an ERP letter rhyming effect, this finding could be important developmentally because single letter stimuli can be used to index rhyming skills with populations who are not yet reading or are struggling to learn how to read.
Article in Brain and Language
Abstract and pdf at Science Direct

Coch, D. (2007). Neuroimaging research with children: ethical issues and case scenarios. Journal of Moral Education, 36(1), 1-18 .
This article is a brief and selective review of ethical issues that can arise in neuroimaging research with children, discussed in the context of the new field of neuroethics and followed by two case study examples to be used to generate discussion.
Article in the Journal of Moral Education
Abstract and pdf at informaworld

Sanders, L.D., Stevens, C., Coch, D., & Neville, H.J. (2006). Selective auditory attention in 3- to 5-year-old children: an event-related potential study. Neuropsychologia, 44(11), 2126-2138. Special issue on Developmental Neuroscience.
The results of this ERP study with typically developing children and adults indicated that even children as young as age 3 can selectively attend to one auditory stream while ignoring another under certain conditions and that the neural mechanisms by which this process of selective auditory attention occurs in the paradigm used appear remarkably adult-like by age 3.
Article in Neuropsychologia
Abstract and pdf at Science Direct

Ansari, D., & Coch, D. (2006). Bridges over troubled waters: education and cognitive neuroscience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(4), 146-151.
This is an opinion piece about how teacher and researcher training can provide bridges between the fields of education and cognitive neuroscience.
Article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Abstract and pdf at Science Direct

Coch, D., Skendzel, W., & Neville, H. (2005). Auditory and visual refractory period effects in children and adults: an ERP study. Clinical Neurophysiology, 116(9), 2184-2203.
The results of this ERP study indicated that basic auditory and visual processing systems in typically developing 6- to 8-year-old children and adults have similar refractory (recovery cycle) characteristics and that the latencies of certain ERP components elicited in the refractory period paradigms are correlated with traditional behavioral measures of accuracy and reaction time.
Article in Clinical Neurophysiology
Abstract and pdf at Science Direct

Coch, D., Skendzel, W., Grossi, G., & Neville, H. (2005). Motion and color processing in school-age children and adults: an ERP study. Developmental Science, 8(4), 372-386.
The results of this ERP study with typically developing 6- to 8-year-old children and adults indicated that both the visual motion and color processing systems indexed by the paradigm develop from middle childhood to adulthood, but were consistent with the hypothesis that the motion processing system has a relatively protracted developmental time course.
Article in Developmental Science
Abstract and pdf at Wiley InterScience

Grossi, G., & Coch, D. (2005). Automatic word form processing in masked priming: an ERP study. Psychophysiology, 42(3), 343-355.
The results of this study with adults indicated that early ERPs (150-250 ms) can be sensitive to the word-likeness (word form) of a stimulus and suggested that word form processing as indexed by ERPs in the paradigm used is automatic and graded (maximal to word-like stimuli and relatively reduced with alphabet-like stimuli).
Article in Psychophysiology
Abstract and pdf at Wiley InterScience

Coch, D., Sanders, L.D., & Neville, H. (2005). An ERP study of selective auditory attention in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(4), 605-622.
The results of this ERP study with typically developing 6- to 8-year-old children and adults indicated that both children and adults showed auditory attention effects in a complex dichotic listening paradigm, but only adults showed specifically lateralized and distributed effects, suggesting that the attentional networks indexed by the paradigm used continue to develop beyond 8 years of age.
Article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Abstract and pdf at MIT Press Journals

Coch, D., Grossi, G., Skendzel, W., & Neville, H. (2005). ERP nonword rhyming effects in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(1), 168-182.
The results of this ERP study with typically developing 6- to 8-year-old children and adults indicated that a similar ERP rhyming effect to auditory nonwords (e.g., nin-rin, ked-voo) was elicited at all ages studied, and that the onset of the ERP rhyming effect in children was later in those who scored lower on standardized measures of phonological awareness.
Article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Abstract and pdf at MIT Press Journals

Coch, D. & Holcomb, P.J. (2003). The N400 in beginning readers. Developmental Psychobiology, 43(2), 146-166.
The results of this ERP study with girls in first grade suggested that the N400 component of the ERP waveform might serve as an oblique index of the automaticity of processes that contribute to reading; all girls were at or above grade level in reading, but only the highest-ability readers showed a marked and widespread N400 in response to word stimuli.
Article in Developmental Psychobiology
Abstract and pdf at Wiley InterScience

Coch, D., Maron, L., Wolf, M., & Holcomb, P.J. (2002). Word- and picture-processing in children: an event-related potential study. Developmental Neuropsychology, 22(1), 373-406.
The results of this ERP study with typically developing 10- and 11-year-old children indicated that real words (e.g., grapes), pseudowords (e.g., chour), letter strings (e.g., bnra), and false fonts (strings of letter-like forms) all elicited an anteriorly-distributed N400 component in the ERP waveform, suggesting that young readers may process many different types of strings as possible words to some extent.
Article in Developmental Neuropsychology
Abstract and pdf at informaworld

Coch, D., Grossi, G., Coffey-Corina, S., Holcomb, P.J., & Neville, H.J. (2002). A developmental investigation of ERP auditory rhyming effects. Developmental Science, 5(4), 467-489.
The results of this ERP study spanning age 7 to adulthood indicated that auditory ERP rhyming effects were quite similar in size, distribution, and latency across all age groups, suggesting that the neurocognitive networks involved in processing auditory rhyme information, as indexed by the paradigm used, have an adult-like organization at least by the age of 7.
Article in Developmental Science
Abstract and pdf at Wiley Interscience

Grossi, G., Coch, D., Coffey-Corina, S., Holcomb, P.J., & Neville, H.J. (2001). Phonological processing in visual rhyming: a developmental ERP study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13(5), 610-625.
The results of this ERP study spanning age 7 to adulthood indicated that the posterior visual ERP rhyming effect was quite similar in onset and distribution across all age groups, but an anterior effect showed greater hemispheric asymmetry with increasing age (and was correlated with reading and spelling scores); these results suggested that different aspects of phonological processing tapped by a visual rhyming task rely on different neurocognitive systems and have different developmental time courses.
Article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Abstract and pdf at MIT Press Journals