Keith M. Gora

 

The University of Texas at Austin

Psychology Department

1 University Station A8000

Austin, Texas, 78712-0187

 

kgora@mail.utexas.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

EDUCATION

 

Ph.D.   Psychology                              In progress       University of Texas

Austin, TX

 

M.S.     Psychology                              July, 2001        Southwest Missouri State University

Springfield, MO

 

B.A.     Psychology                              June, 1996       Northwestern University

Evanston, IL

 

Dissertation      Title: In progress

 

Advisor: Les B. Cohen, Ph.D., How infants come to understand concepts and categories. Principles governing infants’ early language. How infants process causal relations and other visual events. When infants perceive both the form and function of objects with which they interact.

 

Thesis              Title: Heart Rate Period-Defined Allocations of Attention Within a Visual Discrimination Learning Task.

 

Advisor: D. Wayne Mitchell, Ph.D., Psychophysiology of learning, study of infant (newborn to 10 months of age), child, and adult visual learning; psychophysiology of visual learning and attention.

 

EXTRACURRICULAR

 

                        Student: Summer Class on Connectionist Modeling (Summer 2003)

                        Oxford University, Oxfordshire, England.

                       

                        Examiner: Bayley Infant Scales of Development III Pilot Test (Spring 2003)

                        Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, Texas.

 

                        Coordinator: Undergraduate Research, Infant Cognition Lab (Spring 2001 – Summer 2003)

                        University of Texas, Austin, TX.

                       

                        Tutor:  Intercollegiate Association of Women’s Athletics (Fall 2003 – Spring 2003)

                        University of Texas, Austin, TX.

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

 

Assistant Instructor: PSY 304 Introduction to Child Psychology (Fall 2004)

University of Texas, Austin, TX

 

Assistant Instructor: PSY 203 Introduction to Research (Spring 2001).

Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

 

Guest Lecturer: PSY 304 Introduction to Child Development (Fall 2004)

University of Texas, Austin, TX

 

Guest Lecturer: PSY 333M Infant development (Fall 2004)

University of Texas, Austin, TX

 

Teaching Assistant: PSY 333D Introduction to Developmental Psychology (Spring 2005)

University of Texas, Austin TX

 

Teaching Assistant: PSY 304 Introduction to Child Psychology  (Spring 2004)

University of Texas, Austin, TX

 

Teaching Assistant: PSY 394S Sensation and Perception (Spring 2003).

University of Texas, Austin, TX.

 

Teaching Assistant: PSY 418 Statistical Methods in Psychology (Fall 2002).

University of Texas, Austin, TX

 

Teaching Assistant: PSY 302 Experimental Psychology (Summer 2000).

                        Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

 

Invited Talks

 

Gora, K. M., Brunt, R. J. (Sept 2004). Infant Word Learning.  A presentation given at the Development Psychology Area Meeting, University of Texas, Austin, TX.

 

Graduate Assistantships

 

Consultant: Computer Research and Instructional Support Project (Fall ‘00 - Summer ‘01) Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO

Provided group and individual training programs for faculty and graduate students regarding the creation of multimedia classroom presentations and multimedia programs for research purposes.

 

Lab Supervisor: Statistics Technologies and Computing Lab (Fall ’99 - Summer ‘00)

Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

University student computing fees fund the psychology department in operating a twenty-station, computer statistics laboratory where students can go to receive additional help in running statistical analyses and completing other computer-driven assignments. My primary responsibilities were tutoring students from various courses in statistics and research design and providing technical support for other students of the department.

 

Awards

                        2005 Lobliner Fellowship

                        2004 Dallenbach Fellowship

 

Professional Societies

 

-  Society for Research in Child Development

-  International Society in Infancy Research 

 

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

 

Aug ’01 – Present        Research Assistant

                                    Psychology Department, University of Texas, Austin, TX.

                                    Leslie B. Cohen Ph.D., Supervisor.

 

Aug ’99 – Aug ‘01      Research Assistant

                                    Psychology Department, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

                                    D. Wayne Mitchell, Ph.D., Supervisor.

 

Areas of Interest

-  Investigated heart rate as an indicator of sustained attention and a measure of stimulus encoding in a visual, synchronous reinforcement, discrimination - learning task.

-  Investigated habituation effects reflected in changes of heart rate elicited during a visual, synchronous reinforcement, discrimination - learning task.

-  Assisted in the setup and implementation of an event-related brain potential lab.

-  Examined scanning behaviors associated with stimulus encoding during a visual discrimination task.

 

Aug. ‘96- Aug. ’99     Research Assistant

                                    Smith Mental Retardation Research Center,

                                    University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS.

                                    Rathe Karrer, Ph.D., Jennifer Hill-Karrer, Ph.D., Supervisors.

 

Areas of Interest:

-  The infant event-related brain potential complex NSW, Pb, NC and NC2 as a manifestation of attention, expectancy and memory formation.

-  The functional development of information processing in infants 6 months to 4 years of age with and without Down syndrome.

-  The development of the inhibitory processes necessary for skillful execution of a novel motor task in individuals with and without Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome and mental retardation.

-  Effects of practice on movement-related brain potential correlates of movement preparation and execution.

 

Mar. '95-Aug. '96        Independent Study

                                      Psychology Department, Northwestern University,

Evanston, IL.

 

Advisor: J. Peter Rosenfeld, Ph.D., Cognitive psychophysiology: ERP and EEG representation of cognitive and emotional states, e.g., memory, deception, affect.  Applications: detection of deception and malingering, neurofeedback (operant control of neural events), neurotherapy (EEG entrainment, driving).

 

Job description: data collection (event-related brain potentials, electroencephalograms), statistical analysis, and participant recruitment

 

Areas of Interest:

-  P300 correlates of depth of processing in a cued recall task: Differentiating deception from truth in cases of simulated amnesia.

-  P300 correlates of infrequently used words in an oddball paradigm performed with simulated cognitive deficit.

-  Correlates of EEG amplitude across reference sites CZ, A1 and A2.

 

PUBLICATIONS

 

Rosenfeld, J.P., Reinhart, A., Bhatt, M., Ellwanger, J., Gora, K., Sekera, M., Sweet, J. (1998). P300 correlates of simulated malingered amnesia on a matching-to-sample task: Topographic analyses of deception vs. truth telling responses. International Journal of Psychophysiology 28, 233-247.

 

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

 

Gora, K. M., Brunt, R. J., Cohen, L. B. (2005). Evidence for mutual exclusivity in 14-month-old infants. Poster presented at the 2005 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

 

Brunt, R. J., Gora, K. M., Cohen, L. B. (2005). Building BLOCK for the investigation of

early word learning and experience. Poster presented at the 2005 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

 

Shield, A., Shaw, K., Wright, A. J.,  Gora, K. M., Cohen, L. B., & Meier, R. P. (2003, September). How Children Learn Signs for Objects: Testing the Nature of Unimodal Mappings. Poster presented at the 8th Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research, Barcelona, Spain

 

Drollinger, S., Gora, K., Mitchell, D. W., & Sowers, K. R. (2003, June). Phasic changes in evoked heart rate as a function of discrimination training. Poster presented at the 15th  Annual American Psychological Society Convention, Atlanta, GA.

 

Cashon, C. H., Cohen, L. B., Gora, K. M., (2003). Evidence for infants’ categorical perception of facial orientation. Poster presented at the 2003 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.

 

Melton, C., Mitchell, D. W., Abbacchi, A. M., Gora, K. M., & Drollinger, S. (2002, June). Heart Rate: An indicator of attentional processes during visual discrimination learning. Poster presented at the 14th Annual American Psychological Society Convention, New Orleans, LA.

 

Gora, K., Mitchell, D.W., Keet-Bell, J., Swarnes, T.A. (2001, August). Heart rate defined phases of visual discrimination learning. Poster session presented at the 109th Annual American Psychological Association Convention, San Francisco, CA.

 

Keet-Bell, J., Mitchell, D.W., Gora, K., Moore, J., (2001, August). Visual habituation: Effects on heart rate during visual discrimination learning. Poster session presented at the 109th Annual American Psychological Association Convention, San Francisco, CA.

 

Mitchell, D.W., Boles, R., Keet-Bell, J., Gora, K., Hudson, R., Wallace, D., (2001, May). The visual scanning behavior and heart rate: evidence of individual differences in visual discrimination learning. Poster session submitted to the 27th Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral Analysis, New Orleans, LA.

 

Gora, K. (2001, April). Heart rate defined phases of visual discrimination learning. Poster session presented at the Graduate Interdisciplinary Forum, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Gora, K., Chaney, L., (2000, September). Developmental Neuroscience perspectives of brain behavior among infants with Down syndrome. Symposium at the 9th International Workshop on the Molecular Biology of Chromosome 21 and Down Syndrome, Bar Harbor, ME.

 

Mitchell, D.W., Wilkenson, D.Z., Keet-Bell, J., Conus, J.R., Gora, K.M. (2000, August). Correlation between visual discrimination, processing levels, intelligence and heart rate. Poster session presented at the 108th Annual American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Gora, K., Fitzpatrick, D., Chaney, L. (2000). ERPs reflect infants’ ability or inability to detect stimulus omission during visual recognition memory paradigms. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 35,

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Hagerman, R., Gora, K., Fitzpatrick, D., Bloom, D., Chaney, L.,  (2000, July). Stimulus omission during visual recognition memory is detected by six-month-old infants, but not by infants with Down Syndrome (DS) or Fragile X Syndrome (FXS): an Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP) study.  Poster session presented at the 12th Biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, Brighton, England.

 

Gora, K., Keet-Bell, J., Taylor, A.M., Sappington-Sandidage, J.A.,Mitchell, D.W. (2000, May). Visual discrimination learning: Changes in heart rate as a function of habitual and contingency experience.  Poster session presented at the College of Health and Human Services Student Research Forum, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

 

Keet-Bell, J., Gora, K., Taylor, A.M., Sappington-Sandidage, J.A., Mitchell, D.W. (2000, May). The effect of visual discrimination learning upon adults’ visual evoked response potentials to abstract stimuli.  Poster session presented at the College of Health and Human Services Student Research Forum, Springfield, MO.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Hagerman, R., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K., Chaney, L., Vabold, J. (2000, March). Contrast of neurocognitive development among infants with Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome and infants without risk of developmental delay: ERP studies of sequential information processing within visual recognition memory. Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Gatlinburg Conference on Research and Theory in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, San Diego, CA.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Chaney, L., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K. (1998) A new correlate of visual recognition memory in early infancy, NC2: event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from six-month-old infants with and without Down syndrome. Paper presented at the First Biennial Scientific Conference on Down Syndrome, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

 

Karrer, J.H., Karrer, R.S., Chaney, L., Gora, K. (1998). Early, middle and late neural indices of attention and memory among six-month-old infants with and without Down syndrome: Topographic intercorrelations of regional brain electrophysiology during visual recognition memory. Paper presented at the 31st Annual Gatlinburg Conference on Research and Theory in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Charleston, SC.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Chaney, L., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K. (1998). A new correlate of visual recognition memory in early infancy, NC2: Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from 6-month-old infants with and without Down syndrome. Paper presented at the Winter Conference on Current Advances in Developmental Psychobiology, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Bloom, D., Chaney, L., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora K., Vallagra, F., Gordon, A. (1997). Early identification of six-month-old infant subject with autism by ERPs and behavior during a cognitive task one year prior to clinical diagnosis: A retrospective case study.  Poster session presented at the 30th Annual Gatlinburg Conference on Research and Theory in Mental Retardation and DD, Charleston, SC.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Chaney, L., Gora, K., Fitzpatrick, D. (1997). Intercorrelations of regional ERPs during visual recognition in six-month-old infants with and without Down syndrome. Paper presented at the International Conference on Mental Retardation: Genes, Brain and Behavior, Staten Island, NY.

 

Karrer, R., Bloom, D., Chaney, L., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K., Hill Karrer, J. (1997) Electrophysiological correlates of habituation and cognition in six-month-old infants with Down syndrome. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 23, 1871.

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Chaney, L., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K. (1997). A new correlate of visual recognition memory in early infancy, NC2: Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from 6-month-old infants with and without Down syndrome. Psychophysiology 34, S50

 

Hill Karrer, J., Karrer, R., Fitzpatrick, D., Gora, K. (1997). EMG-triggered movement-related brain potentials (MRPs) in 4-18-month-old infants: A pilot study. Psychophysiology 34, S51.