Dr Matt Roser
Profiles

Dr Matt Roser

Lecturer in Psychology

School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)

Dr Matt Roser can be contacted through arrangement with our Press Office, to speak to the media on these areas of expertise.
  • Brain hemispheres – asymmetry
  • Neuropsychology of reasoning
  • Brain imaging
  • Experimental methods
  • Quantitative research
Biography

Biography

Qualifications

I studied for a Ph.D with Professor Michael Corballis at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. My Ph.D investigated interhemispheric interaction in callosotomised (split-brain) patients and people with agenesis of the corpus callosum.
In 2002 I moved to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA, to work with Professor Michael Gazzaniga. While I was a Research Assistant Professor at Dartmouth I continued to test split-brain patients and broadened my research to incorporate functional MRI, electroencephalography, and diffusion-tensor imaging.
I moved to the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth in 2006.
More information about my research.
My office hours for Semester 2 are Monday and Tuesday 10-11am. Email me if you cannot make these times and wish to make an appointment.

Professional membership

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching interests

Cognitive neuropsychology, biopsychology, cerebral asymmetry and interaction, perception, cognition and attention.
Research

Research

Research interests

Research in the Laterality Lab is aimed at establishing how perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes are integrated between the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain. This is undertaken using a variety of methods including studying patients in whom the hemispheres have been surgically separated (a callosotomy or split brain), functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and event-related potentials (ERP).
Recently my colleagues and I have concentrated on determining how, and where in the brain, the processes that allow us to make sense of a constantly changing physical world occur. Our research suggests that what we think of as quite high-level concepts such as causality and physical plausibility involve low-level perceptual and memory processes. Moreover, the two cerebral hemispheres make different contributions to this type of conceptual knowledge.
Current research:
To better understand change to interhemispheric interaction and cerebral laterality with age we are investigating the relationship between age-related change to brain microstructural connectivity, functional lateralization, and cognitive performance. The central aim of this research is to determine whether individual differences in age-related cognitive decline are reflected in functional reorganization in the brain, and whether these changes are mediated by the degree of structural preservation. This project will help us better understand why some people experience greater cognitive decline with age than do others.
Beginning in August 2012 we embarked on a three-year project funded by the ESRC (RES-062-23-3285, £302,000) to investigate the neuropsychology of reasoning. This major project integrates evidence from several complementary neuropsychological techniques. To extend our studies of how the two cerebral hemispheres contribute to higher cognition we are running a combined fMRI and DTI investigation of reasoning in people with autism or Asperger syndrome. The reasoning task involves integrating information to reach a conclusion. This process draws upon widely-distributed brain networks, the connectivity of which may be disturbed in autism. Converging evidence from several brain-imaging techniques can tell us how these networks differ in the normal and the autistic brain. We are using behavioural studies and brain imaging to investigate how age affects anatomical connectivity between the two cerebral hemispheres, and how this impacts upon behaviour. Finally, we are also using combined functional MRI and diffusion-tensor imaging to investigate interhemispheric interaction in motor responses to visual stimuli.
More information about my research.

Research groups

Grants & contracts

Alzheimer's Research UK- South West Development grant (£2,800). Normal ageing and the precursors of dementia investigated using brain imaging. ARUK-SW brain database. 
£374,852 (ESRC): Dual processes in reasoning: A neuropsychological study of the role of working memory. (Matt Roser, Principal Investigator)
British Academy Research GrantsSG-47678. (£ 7,000) 
The spatial-correspondence hypothesis – an ERP investigation. 
Role: Primary Investigator. 
National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 NS031443-10A2. 
Neurologic & Cognitive Analysis of Callosotomy Patients. 
Role: Investigator. (Primary Investigator: Gazzaniga, M.S.)
Publications

Publications

Key publications

Key publications are highlighted

Journals
Articles
Yang X, Huang J, Roser M & Guangrong X (2022) 'Anhedonia reduction correlates with increased ventral caudate connectivity with superior frontal gyrus in depression' Journal of Psychiatric Research 151, 286-290 , DOI Open access
Yang X, Huang J, Harrision P, Roser ME, Tian K, Wang D & Liu G (2021) 'Motivational differences in unipolar and bipolar depression, manic bipolar, acute and stable phase schizophrenia' Journal of Affective Disorders 283, 254-261 , DOI Open access
Karuza EA, Emberson LL, Roser ME, Cole D, Aslin RN & Fiser J (2017) 'Neural Signatures of Spatial Statistical Learning: Characterizing the Extraction of Structure from Complex Visual Scenes' Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 29, (12) 1963-1976 , DOI Open access
Nicholson T, Roser M & Bach P (2017) 'Understanding the Goals of Everyday Instrumental Actions Is Primarily Linked to Object, Not Motor-Kinematic, Information: Evidence from fMRI' PLOS ONE 12, (1) e0169700-e0169700 , DOI Open access
Roser ME, Aslin RN, McKenzie R, Zahra D & Fiser J (2015) 'Enhanced visual statistical learning in adults with autism' Neuropsychology 29, (2) 163-172 Author Site , DOI Open access
Roser ME, Evans JSBT, McNair NA, Fuggetta G, Handley SJ, Carroll LS & Trippas D (2015) 'Investigating reasoning with multiple integrated neuroscientific methods' Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, , DOI Open access
Karuza EA, Emberson LL, Roser ME, Gazzaniga MS, Cole D, Aslin RN & Fiser J (2014) 'Dynamic shifts in connectivity between frontal, occipital, hippocampal and striatal regions characterize statistical learning of spatial patterns' Journal of Vision 14, (10) 955-955 , DOI
Trippas D, Verde MF, Handley SJ, Roser ME, McNair NA & Evans JSBT (2014) 'Modeling causal conditional reasoning data using SDT: caveats and new insights' Front Psychol 5, Author Site , DOI Open access
Sambrook TD, Roser M & Goslin J (2012) 'Prospect theory does not describe the feedback-related negativity value function' Psychophysiology 49, (12) 1533-1544 Author Site , DOI Open access
Linnet E & Roser ME (2012) 'Age-Related Differences in Interhemispheric Visuomotor Integration Measured by the Redundant Target Effect' PSYCHOLOGY AND AGING 27, (2) 399-409 Author Site , DOI Open access
Marrett NE, de-Wit LH, Roser ME, Kentridge RW, Milner AD & Lambert AJ (2011) 'Testing the dorsal stream attention hypothesis: Electrophysiological correlates and the effects of ventral stream damage' VISUAL COGNITION 19, (9) 1089-1121 Author Site , DOI Open access
Roser ME, Corballis MC, Jansari A, Fulford J, Benattayallah A & Adams WM (2011) 'Bilateral redundancy gain and callosal integrity in a man with callosal lipoma: a diffusion-tensor imaging study' Neurocase 18, (3) 185-198 Publisher Site , DOI Open access
Roser M, Fiser J, Aslin RN & Gazzaniga M (2011) 'Right hemisphere dominance in visual statistical learning' Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, (5) 1088-1099 , DOI Open access
Fugelsang J & Roser M (2010) 'On the Interaction Between Stimulus Features and Context in the Perception of Causality~!2009-09-10~!2009-12-30~!2010-07-13~!' The Open Psychology Journal 3, (2) 91-96 , DOI
Fugelsang J & Roser M (2010) 'On the Interaction Between Stimulus Features and Context in the Perception of Causality' The Open Psychology Journal 3, 91-96
Lambert A, Roser M, Wells I & Heffer C (2006) 'The spatial correspondence hypothesis and orienting in response to central and peripheral spatial cues' Visual Cognition 13, (1) 65-88
Fiser J, Roser ME, Aslin RN & Gazzaniga MS (2005) 'Right hemisphere processes dominate the initial phase of visual statistical feature-learning' Journal of Vision 5, (8) 1055-1055 , DOI
Fugelsang J, Roser M, Corballis P, Gazzaniga M & Dunbar K (2005) 'Brain mechanisms underlying perceptual causality' Cognitive Brain Research 24 (1), 41-47 , DOI
Roser ME, Fugelsang JA, Dunbar KN, Corballis PM & Gazzaniga MS (2005) 'Dissociating processes supporting causal perception and causal inference in the brain' Neuropsychology 19, (5) 591-602
Lambert AJ, Roser M, Wells I & Heffer C (2005) 'Orienting in response to symmetric and asymmetric spatial precues: Implications for the distinction between endogenous and exogenous orienting' Perception 34, 185-185
Fugelsang J, Roser M, Green A, Stein C, Gazzaniga M & Dunbar K (2005) 'Examining how task set modulates impressions of causality' Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 169-169
Roser M, Fiser J, Gazzaniga M & Aslin R (2005) 'Neuroanatomical correlates of statistical visual feature learning' Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 140-140
Roser M & Gazzaniga MS (2004) 'Automatic brains - Interpretive minds' Current Directions in Psychological Science 13, (2) 56-59
Roser & Corballis MC (2003) 'Interhemispheric neural summation in the split brain: effects of stimulus colour and task' Neuropsychologia 41 (7), 830-846 , DOI
Roser M & Corballis MC (2002) 'Interhemispheric neural summation in the split brain with symmetrical and asymmetrical displays' Neuropsychologia 40, (8) 1300-1312
Lambert A & Roser M (2001) 'Effects of bilateral colour cues on visual orienting: Revisiting William James' 'derived attention'' New Zealand Journal of Psychology 30, (1) 16-22
Roser M, Fugelsang J, Handy T, Dunbar K & Gazzaniga M 'Representations of physical plausibility revealed by event-related potentials' Neuroreport 20, (12) 1081-1086
Chapters
Roser ME & Gazzaniga MS (2007) '4.33 The Interpreter in Human Psychology' Evolution of Nervous Systems Elsevier 503-508 , DOI
Roser ME & Gazzaniga MS (2006) 'The interpreter in human psychology' in Preuss TM; Kaas JH The Evolution of Primate Nervous Systems, Volume 4 Academic Press: Oxford. 503-508
Roser M & Gazzaniga M 'Split-Brain Patients' in Squire LR Encyclopedia of Neuroscience Oxford Academic Press 351-356
Personal

Personal

Additional information

Links

A websitewith further descriptions of my research and teaching and papers available for download.