My research interests revolve around understanding how emotional meaning and other types of ’action knowledge’ that we acquire throughout our lives, is grounded in our bodies, and embedded in the semantics that comprise words we use. I want to understand how our brains encode, organize, and integrate intersensory information into meaningful knowledge, and how we use that meaning to predict, and understand written and spoken language. I am currently pursuing training in co-registration of multimodal approaches (e.g., coupling neural and behavioral measures together), and plan to use these skills to explore how our brains (and visual system) use emotion, as well as intersensory information to perceive, and act, in real and virtual worlds.

I am particularly excited about using non-invasive techniques (like Eyetracking, EEG, , TMS), as well as behavioral and psycholinguistic methods to study the neural mechanisms underlying memory, attention, and cognitive control involved in language expression and comprehension.

These days my work in the LaMA lab revolves around observing how covert visual attention + cognitive control processes influence our perception of meaning (such as emotional information around us), and how these function just below the threshold of our conscious awareness (for example, as you effortlessly read this sentence!).

My doctoral work focuses on understanding how age-related cognitive changes, contribute to differences in how people are influenced by the presence of emotion in language. Currently I am running studies that aim to tease apart how age influences our visual attention to positive and negative emotional content in text we encounter on a daily basis.

In my past work, I have used eye-tracking to explore individual differences in important aspects of fluid intelligence (e.g. working memory) improve or limit how much visual information we can process in a given fixation, and how this facilitates or harms us as we comprehend language.

My goal is to use these combined cognitive neuroscience tools, to both expand our basic understanding of language in real-time, and towards future application of clinically relevant problems. My ultimate plan is to use them to help develop reliable metrics of ability/healing apart of patient-centered re/habilitation.

keywords
Eye-tracking/EEG/ CoRegistration/ Electrophysiology / psycholinguistics / semantic memory/ vision science / embodied cognition

Vitae (2023)

Quantitative & Qualitative Researcher, with extensive experience working with large, complex datasets, and interdisciplinary teams.

Professional Experience

• Human Factors Engineer, UX/UR; Engineering Psychology (Consulting Contract) - HirLan, Inc. — (December 2023)

• Instructor and Lecturer (GI) - University of Utah — (2019-2024 present)

• Graduate Research Assistant (RA) - Language and Memory Aging Lab, University of Utah (PI: Dr. Brennan Payne) (2019-present)

• Research Associate, Applied Cognition Laboratory; PI’s Dr. David Strayer, & Dr. Joel Cooper, University of Utah — (2018 -2019)

• Research Assistant, Kjelgaard Lab, RMUoHP Speech Language Pathology Clinical Program — (2018)

• Accessibility Access Program Coordinator & Staff Lead - Usability, Ergonomics, Disability Access, and Assistive Technology Program - Mills College — (2017-2018)

• Integrated Behavioral and Communication Sciences (Speech-Language Pathology Assistant) - Center for Behavioral Sciences Inc,, & Easterseals (2012-2017).

Skills (6+ years)

• User Experience (UX) Research Design with Medical Devices in Hospital and Out-patient Clinical Settings

• Human Factors Data Collection (Primary) & Analysis (primary and secondary)

• Statistical Data Analysis

  • Linear Mixed Effect Modeling

  • Regression Modeling (in Base R, Python)

  • Power analysis / Sample Size Calculation

• Data Visualization in (R & Python)

• Eye-Tracking data collection (primary), processing, and analysis (DataViewer - SR Research / R)

• EEG data collection (primary), processing (MATLAB), and analysis

• Experimental Design (e.g., 2x2, and 1x4 within and between subjects factorial designs)

• Built and Executed Experimental Tasks (Programming API via PsychoPy, and Experiment Builder - SR Research software suite, Gorilla Experiment builder - online)

• Survey & Scale Design, and Implementation (In-person & Online research — via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Prolific)

• Data Management (GitHub, Pre-Registered Study Materials and Data available via Open Science Framework - OSF Repository)

• Scientific Writing / Literature Reviews

• Public Speaking & Research-Focused Storytelling

• Experienced in leading research teams (i.e., hiring, training, team managing, and coordination multi-phase projects)

• Communicating analyses and disseminating distilled results to diverse audiences

• Experienced in initiating and driving original research projects to completion with minimal guidance

• Teaching / Lecturing to large undergraduate courses (+200 students per section)

Selected Publications

Lopes C.L.,, Copeland, A., Schotter, E., Payne, B.R., (in prep). On the Verge of Plausible: Understanding Contributions of Parafoveal and Foveal Plausibility Effects During Reading.

LoTemplio, S. B., Lopes, C. L., McDonnell, A. S., Scott, E. E., Payne, B. R., & Strayer, D. L. (2023). Updating the relationship of the Ne/ERN to task-related behavior: A brief review and suggestions for future research. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 17, 138.

Joel M Cooper, Camille L Wheatley, Madeleine M Mccarty, Conner J Motzkus, Clara L Lopes, Gus Galloway Erickson, Brian R W Baucom, William J Horrey, David Strayer (2020). Age-Related Differences in the Cognitive, Visual, and Temporal Demands of InVehicle Information Systems. Frontiers in Psychology, section Human-Media Interaction

Awards

Sponsored Travel Award - Leading Edge Workshop (NSF/Psychonomics) 2022 - Neural Underpinnings of Attention in the Real World: Co-registration of Eye Movements & EEG

First place in ‘overall best poster’ award - Snowbird Neuroscience Symposium 2019. Snowbird, Utah.

Outstanding Undergraduate Honors Thesis Award, San Francisco State University (2012)

Dean’s List, San Francisco State University (2008-2012)

Conference Presentations & Invited Talks

Lopes, C.L., (2024) Rose-colored Semantics: Exploring Age Related Perceptual Changes Across the Perceptual Span. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, HELD Meeting.

Lopes, C.L., Payne, B.R., (2024) Motivated Attention in Reading: Lexical Valence Moderates Parafoveal Preview Benefits Differently in Younger and Older Adults, Evidence from Gaze-Contingent Boundary Paradigms. Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting 2024

Lopes, C.L., Payne, B.R., (2023) Investigating the Age-Related Positivity Effect in Parafoveal Word Processing During Natural Reading. Society for Affective Science Annual Meeting 2023

Lopes, C. L., Payne, B.R., (2022) Individual Differences in Verbal Working Memory and Parafoveal Word Processing During Natural Reading. Leading Edge Co-Registration Conference (NSF/Psychonomics Society).

Lopes, C.L., Payne, B.R., (2022) Understanding the time course of semantic processing across the visual field during reading: Reconciling evidence from ERPs and eye movement behavior. Society for Psychophysiological Research, 2022

Lopes, C.L., Silox, J.W., Payne, B.R., (2020) Probing Prediction Costs & Benefits: What Response Times and ERPs Reveal About the Role of Volitional Control in Context Processing. Society for Psychophysiological Research, 2020.

Silcox, J., & Lopes, C., Payne, B. (2019) The Role of the Left Inferior Frontal Cortex in Memory for Predictable and Unpredictable Words: An Event-Related rTMS Study.

Lopes, Erickson, Cooper, Wheatley, Strayer, (2019). Driven to comment: Learning from older drivers impressions of in-vehicle technologies. Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society DOI: 10.1177/1071181319631134

University Courses Taught

• Sensation and Perception (2023, 2024) - taught 4x

• Cognitive Psychology (2021,2022,2023,2024) taught 6x

• Methods (2021)

• General Psychology