News

Our PhD student, Aike Shi, presented his study at the Psychonomic Society annual conference in Denver, U.S in Nov 2025. He worked with Prof. Liu to examine the neural substrates of error-driven learning (EDL) and the modulatory role of confidence in individual’s memory using a continuous color-wheel paradigm with fMRI. It was interestingly found that more objective errors (resulted from retrieval inaccuracy) and less subjective errors (derived from lower level of confidence) both predicted greater subsequent memory improvement. Memory-related neural circuits would be first engaged under lower level of confidence that fostered memory update through objective retrieval errors, while the metamemory-related regions would be more strongly activated under higher level of confidence to process subjective prediction errors resulted from unexpected retrieval failures.

Our RA, Yixuan Liu, presented her work with PhD student, Sophie Zhou, at the Psychonomic Society conference in Denver, U.S in Nov 2025. To address the dearth of research in examining testing effect in sign language acquisition and its underlying neural mechanism, Sophie, Yixuan, and Mingrou worked with Prof. Liu to investigate whether and how retrieval practice differentially enhanced vocabulary learning across two linguistic modalities, i.e., spoken Spanish and AmericanSign Language (ASL). Through fMRI scanning, our neuroimaging data showed that retrieval-based learning led to robust learning outcomes for both modalities; however, retrieval and restudy are respectively involved with distinct neural circuits. Specifically, ASL acquisition, compared to Spanish learning, preferentially recruited parietal regions that are associated with spatial processing, motor coordination, and multimodal integration.