Dr Kristen PAMMER

PhD

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Research and Supervision Interests
Current Teaching
Research Students
Experience
Selected Publications

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 currently conducting research into inattentional blindness and attentional blink

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.

I have worked at the The University of Newcastle, UK, and MEG labs at the Helsinki University of Technology , Aston UNiversity in the UK and the RIKEN institute in Japan.

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

Vanessa Beanland (PhD recently submitted) Inattentional Blindness

Iris Carter (Clinical PhD) dorsal functioning in ageing

Sarah Flint (PhD) dorsal processing in illiterate polutations

Olivia Metcalf (PhD) attentional processes in gaming addiction

Kayla Tulloch (Clinical Doctorate) Dyslexia and reading development

Nandita Sharma (PhD) computer models of reading

Justin Vella (PhD) attention in rumination and depression

Shaun Goh (Clinical PhD) emotional regulation in Specific Language Impairment

Anna Fiveash (Honours) music and cognitive processing

Annie Close (Honours) inattentional blindness in children

Liz Musitano (Honours) attentional blink in children

Xenia Schmalz (Honours) attention in reading development

Present Appointment

Associate Professor


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 
 

Metcalf, O., & Pammer, K. (2011). Attentional Bias in Excessive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Gamers Using a Modified Stroop Task. Computers in Human Behavior, in press

Beanland, V., Allen, R., & Pammer, K. (2011). Attending to music decreases inattentional blindness. Consciousness and Cognition, in press

Beanland, V., & Pammer, K. (2010). Gorilla watching: Effects of exposure and expectations on inattentional blindness. In W. Christensen, E. Schier, & J. Sutton (Eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science. Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.

Beanland, V & Pammer, K. (2010). Looking without seeing or seeing without looking? Eyemovements in sustained inattentional blindness. Vision Research, 50, 977-988.

Vidyasagar, T.R. & Pammer, K. (2010). Letter-order encoding is both bottom-up and top-down. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(6), 238-239.

Vidyasagar, T.R. & Pammer, K. (2010). Dyslexia: a deficit in visuo-spatial attention, not in phonological processing. Trends in Cognitive Science, 14(2), 57-63.

Pammer K (2009). Features are fundamental in word recognition. In The Neural Basis for
Reading, (Cornelissen, Hansen, Pugh, Eds). Oxford University Press

Pammer, K., Connell, E., & Kevan, A. (2009/10). Reading and spelling: Using visual
sensitivity to explore separate or dual orthographic mechanisms. Perception, 39, 387-406

Kevan, A., Pammer, K. (2009). Predicting early reading skills from pre-reading measures of dorsal stream functioning. Neuropsychologia, 47, 3174-3181

Pammer, K., (2009). What can MEG neuroimaging tell us about reading? Journal of NeuroLinguistics, 22, 266-280

Kevan, A., & Pammer, K. (2008). Visual processing deficits in preliterate children at
familial risk for dyslexia. Vision Research, 48, 2835-2839

Kevan, A., & Pammer, K. (2008). Making the link between dorsal stream sensitivity and
reading. Neuroreport, 19(4), 467-470

Pammer, K., & Kevan, A. (2007). The contribution of visual sensitivity, phonological
processing, and nonverbal IQ to children's reading. Scientific Studies of Reading,
11, 33-53

Kujala, J., Pammer, K., Cornelissen, P., Roebroeck, A., Formisano, E., & Salmelin R.
(2007). Phase coupling in a cerebro-cerebellar network at 8-13 hz during reading. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 1476-1485

Pammer, K., Hansen, P., Holliday, I., Cornelissen, P. (2006). Attentional shifting and the
role of the dorsal pathway in visual word recognition.  Neuropsychologia, 44, 2926-2936

Pammer, K., & Vidyasagar, TR. (2005) Integration of the visual and auditory networks in
dyslexia: a theoretical perspective. Journal of Research in Reading, 28, 320-331

Pammer, K. What’s in a name? (2005) Special Education Perspectives, 14, 3-7

Pammer, K., Lavis, R., Cooper., Hansen, P., & Cornelissen, P. (2005) Symbol string sensitivity and adult performance in lexical decision. Brain and Language, 94, 278-296

Pammer, K., Lavis,R., Hansen, P.,Cornelissen, P (2004). Symbol string sensitivity and
children’s reading. Brain and Language, 89, 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, 1819-1825

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

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

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.