BSc, MSc, PhD

Marie Curie Fellow (UKRI funded)

RESEARCH SUMMARY

I am a memory researcher, and my research investigates two fundamental aspects of human memory—working memory and long-term memory (LTM)—using multiple research methods. Understanding how humans make and retain memories over the short and long term helps us analyze other cognitive functions such as how we learn or make decisions. I use a diverse methodological toolkit, including behavioural experiments, computational modeling, and cognitive neuroscience.

My current research program seeks to uncover what factors help and expands the limits of WM and how individuals differ in benefiting from these factors. My previous research showed that people can preserve more information in their WM when a) they give a pause (i.e., free time) during encoding new information in WM, b) the information consists of familiar chunks (e.g., a well-known number sequence such as 911 in a phone number). My current research focuses on examining the underlying mechanisms of these two benefits further using neuroscientific methods and cognitive modeling. My future research aims to examine individual differences in the observed benefits.

BIOGRAPHY

Eda Mizrak studied a BSc and MSc in Psychology and completed her PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Koc University, Istanbul. During her PhD, Eda was awarded a research visit fellowship and she finished her PhD at the University of Davis, California with Prof Charan Ranganath focusing on neural mechanisms of human memory. She continued her research at UC Davis as a postdoctoral fellow and joined University of Zurich Cognition Lab shortly after. At the Cognition lab, she focused more on behavioral studies and computational modeling of working memory with Prof Klaus Oberauer. At the end of her time in Zurich, she was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship to conduct her independent research program at the University of Oxford in 2022. Her contributions and research are widely acknowledged in her field and she was recognized as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science. In 2023, she joined Queen Mary University of London as a part-time Lecturer in Psychology while still continuing her work as a Marie Curie fellow.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

EMAIL:                     eda.mizrak@psy.ox.ac.uk