Psychology
Animal Learning and Behavior; Behavioral Neuroscience; Developmental Psychology; Memory and Learning
Specific Research Areas:
Comparative Cognition; Numerical Cognition;Educational Neuroscience
Dr. Brannon's research program examines the evolution and development of quantitative cognition. She studies how adult humans, infants, young children and nonhuman animals without language represent number. She uses behavioral techniques, event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and single-unit physiology to explore the cognitive and neural underpinnings of numerical cognition in nonhuman primates and throughout the human lifespan. A major current focus is to study how training the primitive number sense might facilitate mathematical abilities in children and adults.
Professor Elizabeth Brannon will be considering new graduate students for admission for Fall 2025.
DeWind, N.K., G.K. Adams, Platt, M.L. Brannon, E. M., (2015). Modeling the approximate number system; Quantifying the contribution of visual stimulus features, Cognition, 142, 247-265.
Drucker, C., & Brannon, E. M. (2014). Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) map number onto space, Cognition, 132(1), 57-67. PMCID: PMC4031030.
Park, J., & Brannon, E. M. (2014). Improving arithmetic performance with number sense training: An investigation of underlying mechanism,Cognition, 133(1), 188-200. NIHMSID: NIHMS614955.
Pinhas, M., Woldorff, M., & Brannon, E.M. (2014). Electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of the approximate number system in preschoolers’ processing of spoken number words, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(9), 1891-1904. NIHMSID: 621122
Starr, A., Libertus, M.E., & Brannon, E.M. (2013). Infants show ratio dependent discrimination regardless of set size, Infancy, 18(6), 1-15. PMCID: PMC3864890
Cantlon, J.F., Platt, M.L., & Brannon, E.M. (2009). Beyond the number domain. Invited review. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(2), 83-91. PMCID: PMC2709421.
- PSYC 181 Developmental Psychology
- PSYC 480 Seminar in Developmental Psychology
Advisees:
Chuyan Qu [Psychology Graduate Student]