Dr Kristen PAMMER

PhD

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Research and Supervision Interests
Current Teaching
Research Students
Experience
Selected Publications

I have recently returned from a postdoctoral position at The University of Newcastle, UK, and then a research position at the Helsinki University of Technology where I have been using magnetoencephalographic (MEG) brain imaging techniques to investigate early cortical mechanisms in reading.

My primary research interest is in the brain mechanisms involved when we read, and how they might be different for people who cannot read - who are dyslexic. What is involved here is unclear, dyslexia is fundamentally a difficulty in phonics, yet we repeatedly demonstrate that children and adults with dyslexia have concomitant visual and auditory processing difficulties. I am interested in using the spatio-temporal capabilities of MEG to look at the time course of information flow through the brain when we read or engage in the skills necessary for reading, such as audio-visual integration. Along these lines, I am also interested in early attentional processing and interactions between the dorsal and ventral visual pathways. Again using psychophysics and neuroimaging, I am interested in the role of the dorsal visual stream in mediating visual responses.

I am also interested in the neural mechanisms involved in synaesthesia, and how an understanding of synaesthesia might contribute to our understanding of the interactions between different neural populations. One way in which different parts of the brain communicate may be through the use of different oscillatory signatures, therefore I am also interested in event-related synchronisation and desychronisation of populations of cells in the cortex as a mechanism of neural interaction.

• coordinator PSYC1003 ( Psychology I : Understanding Mind, Brain, and Behaviour )
• coordinator PSYC1004 ( Psychology II : Understanding People in Context )
• lecturer Honours Special Topics ( Cognitive Psychology )

Alison Kevan ( PhD ) The role of dorsal stream developing in reading.

Ellen Connell ( Honours )

Jessica Gardner ( Honours )

Present Appointment

Lecturer Level C at the Australian National University

August 1999 to present

Previous Appointments

Visiting researcher at Helsinki University of Technology

September 2004-March 2005

Postoctoral research fellow at Newcastle University, UK

September 2000 - September 2003

Lecturer Level A at the Australian National University

March 1996-Aug 1999

Research assistant at the University of Wollongong

Jan 1992- Dec 1992

Pammer, K & Kevan, A The contribution of visual sensitivity, phonological processing and non-verbal IQ to children's reading. The Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. Accepted subject to revision

Pammer, K., & Vidyasagar, TR. (2005) Integration of the visual and auditory networks in dyslexia: a theoretical perspective. In Press Journal of Research in Reading, 28 (3)

Pammer, K. What's in a name? In Press Special Education Perspectives

Pammer, K., Lavis, R., Cooper., Hansen, P., & Cornelissen, P. (2005) Sensitivity to position and shape encoding predicts reading in lexical decision. In Press - Brain and Language, 93(3)

Pammer, K., Lavis,R., Hansen, P., & Cornelissen, P (2004). Symbol string sensitivity and children's reading. Brain and Language, 89 (3), 601-610

Pammer, K., Hansen, P., Kringelbach, M., Holliday., I Barnes, G., Hillebrand, A., Singh, K., & Cornelissen, P (2004). Visual word recognition: the first half second. Neuroimage, 22 (4), 1819-1825

Pammer, K., Lavis, R., & Cornelissen, P. (2004).Visual encoding mechanisms and their relationship to text presentation preference. Dyslexia, 10 (2), 77-94.

Pammer, K. (2002). Dyslexia. Encyclopaedia of Life Sciences. Nature: Macmillan Press (invited review).

Pammer, K. & Wheatley, C (2001). Isolating the M(y)-cell response in dyslexia using the spatial frequency doubling illusion. Vision Research, 16, 2139-2147

Pammer, K., & Lovegrove, W. (2000). The influence of colour on transient system activity: Implications for dyslexia research. Perception and Psychophysics, 63 (3), 490-500.

Vidyasagar, T, R., & Pammer, K. (1999). Impaired visual search in dyslexia relates to the role of the magnocellular pathway in attention. NeuroReport, 10, 1283-88.

Avons, S., Wright, K., & Pammer, K. (1994). The word-length effect in probed and serial recall. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology - Human Experimental Psychology. 47 A(1) 207-231.

Manuscripts under review

Pammer, Hansen, Holliday, & Cornelissen. Gamma activity during attentional shifting in word recognition: The role of the dorsal pathway in visual word recognition. To Neuropsychologia