Arthur F. Kramer, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology

2247 Beckman Institute
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
405 N. Matthews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61821
Phone: (217) 244-1933
E-mail: akramer@s.psych.uiuc.edu

Area of Interest

Art Kramer's research focuses on several different topics. First, he and his students are interested in understanding changes in various aspects of cognition, and the supporting brain structure and function, across the adult lifespan. For example, he has been examining the manner in which executive control processes (e.g. planning, scheduling, working memory, inhibition, task coordination) change from early to late adulthood and has discovered that contrary to the modal view changes in these processes are selective rather than general in nature. Furthermore, he has found substantial individual differences in the rate of change in these processes across the adult lifespan and is currently examining the source of these differences. Second, Kramer and his students are interested in interventions that can capitalize on the cognitive and brain plasticity of older adults in an effort to enhance cognitive vitality throughout the lifespan. To that end, they have conducted, and are in the process of conducting, a series of randomized clinical trials exploring the effects of aerobic fitness training and cognitive training on brain function and selective aspects of cognition of older adults. In recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies they have discovered substantial sparing of selective regions of cortical gray and white matter for lifetime exercisers and have also observed that older individuals who are aerobically trained show interesting changes, potentially reflecting more efficient processing, in patterns of cortical activation (as reflected through fMRI), as they perform a series of cognitive tasks. Ongoing research is following up these intriguing findings and examining the influence of multi-task training on regional changes in patterns of brain activation of old and young adults.
Kramer and his research group are also interested in understanding how humans search for and extract critical details of the visual environment. To that end they have developed a number of novel paradigms, in collaboration with their colleagues at the University of Illinois and other universities, to examine issues such as the manner in which covert and overt (eye movements) attention are coordinated during visual search, the role and nature of memory processes during search in complex visual environments, and the manner in which humans construct and maintain representations of scenes as they move through complex environments. He has been examining these issues in both well controlled laboratory environments as well as in simulated real-world environments such as automobile driving (using the high fidelity driving simulator in the Beckman Institute) and in artificial environments created in Beckman Institutes six-sided CUBE.
To these research questions, Kramer and colleagues bring to bear methodologies ranging from reaction time and accuracy, and simulation and mathematical modeling to neuroimaging techniques, such as event-related brain potentials and functional and anatomical MRI.

Publications

McCarley, J.S., Wang, R., Kramer, A.F., Irwin, D.E. & Peterson, M.S. (in press - 2003). How much memory does oculomotor search have? Psychological Science.

Peterson, M.S., Belopolsky, A. & Kramer, A.F. (in press - 2003). Contingent marking by transients. Perception and Psychophysics.

McCarley, J.S., Kramer, A.F. & Peterson, M.S. (2003). Overt and covert object-based attention. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9(4), 751-758.

Hahn, S., Andersen, G.J. & Kramer, A.F. (in press - 2003). Parallel control of task and response set switch. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

Kramer, A.F. & Willis, S. (in press - 2003). Cognitive plasticity and aging. In B. Ross (Ed). Psychology of Learning and Motivation, vol 43. N.Y.: Academic Press.

Pringle, H.L., Kramer, A.F., & D.E. Irwin. (in press - 2003). Individual differences (and similarities) in the visual representation of scenes. In D.T. Levin (Ed.), Thinking and seeing: Visual metacognition in adults and children. Westport, CT: Greenwood/Praeger.

McCarley, J.S., Vais, M., Pringle, H., Kramer, A.F., Irwin, D.E. & Strayer, D.L. (in press - 2003). Conversation disrupts scanning of traffic scenes. In Vision in Vehicles IX. N.Y., N.Y., Elsevier.

Colcombe, S.J., Erickson, K.I., Raz, N., Webb, A.G., Cohen, N.J., McAuley, E. & Kramer, A.F. (2003). Aerobic fitness reduces brain tissue loss in aging humans. Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 58, 176-180.

Colcombe, S. & Kramer, A.F. (2003). Fitness effects on the cognitive function of older adults: A meta-analytic study. Psychological Science, 14, 125-130.

Kramer, A.F. & McCarley, J.S. (2003). Oculomotor behavior as a reflection of attention and memory processes: Neural mechanisms and applications to Human Factors. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomic Science, 4(1), 21-55.

Kramer, A.F. & Willis, S.L. (2002). Enhancing the cognitive vitality of older adults. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 173-176.

Milham, M.P., Erickson, K.I., Banich, M.B., Kramer, A.F., Webb, A., Wszalek, T. & Cohen, N.J. (2002). Attentional control in the aging brain: Insights from an fMRI study of the Stroop task. Brain and Cognition, 49, 277-296.

Keywords

Aging, Attention, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive & Brain Plasticity, Executive Control, Perception