Eric Schumacher

	Eric Schumacher	(404) 894-6067
	Experimental
	Ph.D. (1998) Psychology Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience University of Michigan

Assistant Professor of Psychology

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Whether we're driving a car, cooking dinner, performing a psychology experiment, or even watching television, we're performing goal-directed behavior. We must keep track of our current goal (e.g., to cook dinner), so that we do not execute responses inappropriate for the present situation (e.g., sitting down to watch television). Yet, we must also flexibly adapt our goals to changing situations. For example, we must override our "cooking" goal with an "answering" one when we hear the doorbell ring. My research focuses on the mental processes required to carry out these and other types of goal-directed behavior.
A complicated set of mental processes are involved in behaviors like these. In addition to maintaining and updating our goals, we must attend to relevant stimuli, store relevant information in memory, and select and execute appropriate responses. What is the nature of these processes? How do they interact? What are their limitations? How do they change with training? And what are the neural mechanisms underlying them? These are they types of questions I investigate using a variety of experimental techniques: including behavioral testing, functional neuroimaging, and magnetic stimulation.

Selected Publications

• Schumacher, E. H., Hendricks, M. J. & D’Esposito, M. (2005).  Sustained involvement of a frontal-parietal network for spatial response selection with practice of a spatial choice-reaction task.   Neuropsychologia, 43, 1444-1455.
• Schumacher, E. H., Elston, P. A., & D'Esposito, M. (2003). Neural evidence for representation specific response selection. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 1111-1121.
• Schumacher, E. H., Seymour, T. L., Glass, J. M., Fencsik, D. F., Lauber, E. L., Kieras, D. E., & Meyer, D. E. (2001). Virtually perfect time sharing in dual-task performance: Uncorking the central cognitive bottleneck. Psychological Science, 12, 101-108.
• Schumacher, E. H., Lauber, E. J., Glass, J. M., Zurbriggen, E. L., Gmeindl, L., Kieras, D. E., & Meyer, D. E. (1999). Concurrent response-selection processes in dual-task performance: Evidence for adaptive executive control of task-scheduling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25,791-814.
• Schumacher, E. H. & D'Esposito, M. (2002). Neural implementation of response selection in humans as revealed by localized effects of stimulus-response compatibility on brain activation. Human Brain Mapping, 17, 193-201.

Contact Information

Dr. Eric Schumacher School of Psychology Georgia Institute of Technology 654 Cherry Street Atlanta, GA 30332-0170

Telephone: (404) 894-6067 Fax: (404) 894-8905 E-mail: Office Location: 224 J.S. Coon Bldg. Lab Information: CoNTRoL: Cog Neuro at Tech Research Lab