Michelle M. Ramey

Michelle M. Ramey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arkansas, within the College of Arts & Sciences. She leads the MEM Lab (Memory, Eyetracking, and Methods Laboratory) and is actively recruiting graduate students. Her research focuses on episodic memory, particularly its interactions with semantic knowledge, visual attention, and aging, using eyetracking and computational modeling.

Her research interests center on understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying episodic memory. She investigates how schema knowledge influences memory, especially in older adults, and how visual attention and eye movements reflect memory processes. She develops novel cognitive tasks to probe both conscious and unconscious memory, with a strong methodological emphasis on eyetracking and modeling of behavioral data. Her work bridges cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and aging research.

The most recent publications reveal a strong trend in examining memory through the lens of schema interactions, visual attention, and aging. Her work increasingly integrates computational approaches with eyetracking to dissect the contributions of familiarity, recollection, and semantic knowledge. There is a clear focus on both basic cognitive mechanisms and their application to real-world contexts like aging and dietary influences on cognition.

• NSF SPRF (Postdoctoral Research Fellowship)
• NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship

Dr. Ramey has received competitive funding from the NSF and NIH to investigate schema-memory interactions. She mentors graduate students in the MEM Lab and is currently accepting new PhD applicants. Her collaborative research network includes prominent scholars such as Andrew Yonelinas, John Henderson, Darya Zabelina, James Lampinen, and Grant Shields. She has served on the editorial board of the journal Cognition, reflecting her active engagement in the academic community.

She directs the MEM Lab at the University of Arkansas, a research group dedicated to advancing methods and theory in human memory using eyetracking, behavioral experiments, and computational modeling. The lab investigates memory in both young and older adults, with a focus on real-world implications.