Tag: Alan S. Brown

Dallas Morning News: SMU professor studies mental lapses like Perry’s

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 17, 2011

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow interviewed SMU Psychology Professor Alan Brown about what caused Texas Gov. Rick Perry during a recent GOP debate to forget which federal departments he wanted to abolish. Blow’s article, “SMU professor studies mental lapses like Perry’s,” was published Nov. 16.

Brown has studied the phenomenon and has written a book about “Tip of the Tongue” experiences.

Brown’s research primarily involves how people store and retrieve information about the real world, and the manner in which these processes fail us, including the tip of the tongue experience, where one is momentarily stymied in accessing well-stored knowledge.

Another such phenomenon is the false positive recognition experience of déjà vu, where a present experience seems subjectively familiar when one knows that it is objectively new. Brown is currently extending the TOT research to identify the factors underlying repeated TOTs, and whether these change in frequency with age.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Steve Blow
Dallas Morning News
Now that the politics of Rick Perry’s brain freeze have been thoroughly analyzed, let’s look at the psychology of it.

We happen to have an authority on the subject in our own backyard. In fact, Southern Methodist University psychology professor Alan Brown has just written an entire book on this all-too-familiar phenomenon.

The Tip of the Tongue State, his academic treatise is called.

Researchers refer to the mental lapses as TOTs. But for now, a new name has taken hold — “a Perry moment.”

The governor’s predicament was painful to watch because we’ve all been there. In fact, I was there just last Friday night in front of a huge ballroom full of people. And Professor Brown helped me understand a little more of what happened to me and to the governor.

In my case, I was emceeing the Center for Nonprofit Management’s big annual dinner and awards program. I wanted to begin on that Veterans Day by honoring the veterans in attendance and also anyone on active duty or …

Or …

The word “recruit” had popped into my head. But I knew that wasn’t the word I wanted. Related, but not right. So I flailed around, stammering and stuttering. It was ugly.

Finally, someone at a table down front helped me out. “Reserve,” a voice said from the darkness.

Of course! Hallelujah! Reserve duty — that’s the plain-as-day word I was looking for. And Brown points out that “recruit” begins just like “reserve,” which is a common factor in tip-of-the-tongue mishaps.

We seem to blank out worst when a similar word blocks the way. “Some researchers have called them ‘ugly stepsister words,’” Brown said. “They keep the prince from finding Cinderella.”

Read the full story.

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Tags Alan S. Brown, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

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WFAA News 8: Perry’s memory gaffe could be linked to studied health issue

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 12, 2011

“Stress temporarily causes part of the brain called the hippocampus to malfunction,” — Alan Brown

WFAA news reporter Janet St. James interviewed SMU Psychology Professor Alan Brown about what caused Texas Gov. Rick Perry during a recent GOP debate to forget which departments he wanted to abolish.

Brown has studied the phenomenon and has written a book about “Tip of the Tongue” experiences.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Janet St. James
WFAA
Team Perry is in damage control mode, trying to clean up an “Oops” moment at Wednesday night’s GOP debate when Texas Governor Rick Perry couldn’t remember a key point of his presidential campaign.

“The third agency of government I would do away with the education, the uh, the commerce and let’s see. I can’t the third one. I can’t. Oops,” said Perry.

Forgetfulness in geniuses is often considered a sign of brilliance. Einstein was famous for it.

Among the rest of us, senior moments are considered a sign of incompetence, aging, or disease.

Brain researchers said in Perry’s case, it was none of those things.

In fact, there is a name for what happened to Perry.

“The tip of the tongue experience, or state,” said Dr. Alan Brown, memory researcher at SMU. “It’s where you know you have the information, but you just can’t get it out right at the moment.”

Dr. Brown knows all about the phenomenon because he researches the memory and even wrote a book on “The Tip of the Tongue State.”

He said stress temporarily causes part of the brain called the hippocampus to malfunction.

Read the full story.

Tags Alan S. Brown, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

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Déjà Vu research pushes around memory, creates illusion of past encounter

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 19, 2009

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A new study by research psychologists Alan S. Brown of SMU and Elizabeth Marsh of Duke University provides new clues about déjà vu, that eerie sense of experiencing a moment for the second time.

These clues, in turn, could help unlock the secrets of the human brain.

“Déjà vu is inappropriate behavior by the brain,” says Brown, professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology and a leading researcher on memory. “By shedding light on this odd phenomenon, we can better understand normal memory processes.”

Published in the May issue of “Psychological Science,” the study significantly extends research on the déjà vu theory of “double perception,” which suggests that a quick glance at a scene can make it appear strangely familiar when it is fully perceived moments later.

“This is easy to imagine in today’s distracted society,” Brown says. “Let’s say you enter a new museum, glancing at artwork while talking on your cell phone. Upon hanging up, you look around and sense you’ve been there long ago.”

According to double perception theory, the initial glance created a mushy memory without time-space context, Brown says. “When you then consciously register the scene, the brain connects the two memories — and you get that spooky feeling.”

Brown and Marsh re-created this experience in the laboratory using unique symbols. In their trials, a symbol was flashed at a subliminal level on a computer screen, followed by a longer view of the same or a different symbol, or no symbol.

When a flash was followed by its identical symbol, participants were five times more likely to say they had seen that symbol sometime before the experiment.

“We pushed memory around,” Brown says. “We changed people’s views of their personal past by instilling a false sense of a previous encounter.”

In pushing its participants’ memories to a time and place outside the laboratory, the new study goes beyond the few previous studies of double perception that have been conducted in the past 100 years. Those studies used words or names, rather than symbols.

“Words and names are contaminated because study participants actually could have encountered them before the experiment,” Brown says, “but it’s extremely unlikely that they ever had encountered our symbols. Our study more closely parallels a quick glance at an unfamiliar object in the real world.”

In addition to double perception, researchers have other theories about the cause of déjà vu, which is French for “already seen.” These theories include a brief dysfunction in the brain, such as a seizure, and “episodic familiarity,” when a forgotten memory connects with part of the present experience.

Brown and Marsh tested episodic familiarity in a 2008 study published in “Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,” in which participants were quickly shown photos of college campuses they had never visited. Upon returning to the laboratory several weeks later, they viewed a series of new and old campus photos and judged whether they had been to the locations. The study showed that the initial brief exposure increased participants’ beliefs that they had visited these colleges — when, in fact, they hadn’t.

“Déjà vu is such a rare event, with potentially numerous causes,” Brown says. “If we can nudge people a little bit in that direction, we can learn the mechanisms behind it.” — Sarah Hanan

Tags Alan S. Brown, Dedman College, Elizabeth Marsh, SMU Department of Psychology

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Who and why? Déjà vu gets a second look

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 1, 2005

It is a discussion that seems familiar. But new findings show that people who travel frequently are more likely to experience déjà vu. Political liberals report more déjà vu experiences than conservatives do. And déjà vu becomes less common as people grow older.

Most of us have experienced déjà vu, which means “already seen” in French, yet few scientists have studied it. Understanding its causes, however, promises to explain other mysteries of the brain, says Alan Brown, professor in the SMU Department of Psychology in Dedman College and a leading researcher on memory.

“The community of research psychologists is largely silent on the topic, but findings from such research could expand our understanding of routine memory functions,” Brown says.

Many explanations for the déjà vu experience have been connected to the supernatural, he says. In a new book, “The Déjà Vu Experience: Essays in Cognitive Psychology” (2004, Psychology Press), Brown surveys scientific research as well as popular notions of déjà vu from the early 19th century.

From the scientific studies, Brown has identified common facts about déjà vu. A majority of people experience déjà vu, some two-thirds of the population. The frequency of déjà vu decreases with age and is most common among people ages 15 to 25. People with higher incomes and more education have more déjà vu experiences. Déjà Vu appears to be associated with stress and fatigue. Those who travel have more déjà vu experiences. For some, déjà vu experiences appear to repeat prior dreams.

Although there are no definitive answers for what causes déjà vu, Brown offers four scientifically plausible possibilities: two cognitive processes become momentarily out of phase; a brief dysfunction in the brain, such as a seizure, or disruption in the speed of normal neuronal transmission; a memory that we forgot connects with part of the present experience; and an initial perception under distracted conditions is quickly followed by a second perception of the same thing under full attention.

Déjà vu research presents a unique challenge for Brown.

“There is a thrill of examining something that seems to be on the fringes, then pulling it into the scientific realm,” he says.

Brown, who joined the Psychology Department in 1974, is the author of four books, including “Maximizing Memory Power: Using Recall in Business” (1986, John Wiley & Sons).

Tags Alan S. Brown, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

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“Stress temporarily causes part of the brain called the hippocampus to malfunction,” — Alan Brown