Research Areas

Internal states and event memory

Although our daily experiences are continuous, they are segmented into discrete episodes in long-term memory. Both internal and external factors, such as changes in goals or shifts in environmental contexts, can influence the segmentation of a continuous stream of experience. My work explores how changes in internal goal states impact event memory.

Selected publications:

Wang, Y. C., & Egner, T. (2022). Switching task sets creates event boundaries in memory. Cognition, 221, 104992.
Wang, Y. C., & Egner, T. (2023). Target detection does not influence temporal memory. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85, 1936-1948.

Motivational context and learning

Students motivated by the curiosity for knowledge might learn differently from those motivated by the fear of a poor grade. These different motivational contexts not only affect choices made during the learning process, but also influence the quality of subsequent memory. We use behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to study how motivational context modulates various aspects of learning and episodic memory.

Selected publication:

Sinclair, A.H.*, Wang, Y.C.*, Adcock, R.A. (2023). Instructed Motivational States Bias Reinforcement Learning and Memory Formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (31), e2304881120

yuxi.wang@duke.edu

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