Mona Zhu

Ph.D. Candidate

Mona Zhu in front of a dark background. Cognitive psychology

B.Sc. Psychology, UBC

Background

I received my Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Despite having enrolled in a neuroscience-based program, I became interested in social cognition research through my work with Dr. Alan Kingstone at the Brain and Attention Research Laboratory where I studied the role of eye contact in memory, as well as Dr. Jim Enns at the UBC Vision Lab where I examined how people position themselves relative to an image as a function of its focal depth.

Research interests

My primary research interest is in how humans interact with their environments and whether the environment plays a role in our perception of the world and our decision making. One line of research I am currently conducting examines how and why humans organize their environments in task performance. In addition to these main research interests, I am also broadly interested in non-verbal behaviours as well as embodied/extended cognition.

Publications

Zhu, M.J.H., and Risko, E.R. (Under Review). Creatures of habit: The spatial history of objects can overcome effort in determining human spatial organization.
Laidlaw, K.E.W., Badiudeen, T., Zhu, M.J.H., and Kingstone, A. (2015). A fresh look at saccadic trajectories and task irrelevant stimuli: Social relevance matters. Vision Research.

Selected conference presentations

Zhu, M.J.H., Risko, E.F. (June 2015). Bringing it close: Examining perceived frequency of proximally-placed objects. Poster presented at the 11th biennial meeting for the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Zhu, M.J.H., Risko, E.F. (May 2015). When your past influences your present: History of object placement affects human spatial organization. Poster presented at the 24th annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science Society, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Zhu, M.J.H., Lanthier, S.N., Byun, C.S.J., Jarick, M., & Kingstone, A. (July 2014). Eye don’t remember: Excessive eye contact impedes memory. Poster presented at the 24th annual Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Zhu, M.J.H., Byun, C.S.J., Lanthier, S.N., Jarick, M., & Kingstone, A. (May 2013). The secret is in the eyes: Mutual eye contact facilitates performance in a memory task. Poster presented at the 15th annual Northwest Cognition and Memory Conference, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.