Naomi M. Kenner, Ph.D.

Dr. Kenner has expertise in decision making, reaction time, habit development, self-control, associative learning, categorization, memory, visual perception, and attention. Her background provides an understanding of how our history of experiences with contexts, actions, and outcomes influences our behavior, and factors that contribute to human error. She applies this knowledge to address questions about human performance related to consumer product use, warning effectiveness, motor vehicle accidents, slip/trip-and-fall incidents, and eyewitness memory. She has performed evaluations of perception-response time and visual conspicuity in many different domains. Dr. Kenner also has experience in conducting human-subject testing to evaluate human performance, product usability and consumer experience.

Dr. Kenner earned a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA with a focus on cognitive neuroscience and has experience with a variety of behavioral research methods in addition to computer programming of dynamic testing interfaces, image processing, and statistical analysis. Her doctoral work included research on the neural systems involved in the development of goal-directed and habitual behavior, stopping and changing responses, and learning by trial-and-error and by observation.

Kenner NM, Mumford JA, Hommer RE, Skup M, Leibenluft E, Poldrack RA. Inhibitory movement control in response stopping and response switching. Journal of Neuroscience 2010; 30(25):8512–8518.

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Van Wert MJ, Kenner NM, Place SS, Kibbi N. Low target prevalence is a stubborn source of errors in visual search tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2007; 136(4):623–638.

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Kenner NM. Rare items often missed in visual searches. Nature 2005; 435(7041):439–440.

Wolfe JM, Horowitz TS, Kenner N, Hyle M, Vasan, N. How fast can you change your mind? The speed of top-down guidance in visual search. Vision Research 2004; 44:1411–1426.

Published Abstracts

Kenner NM, Mumford JA, Poldrack RA. Associative learning in striatal subregions using high resolution fMRI. Poster, Human Brain Mapping, 2011.

Kenner NM, Mumford JA, Lenartowicz A, Hommer RE, Skup M, Leibenluft E, Poldrack RA. Comparing networks involved in stopping and changing motor responses. Poster, Human Brain Mapping, 2009.

Kenner NM, Mumford JA, Hommer RE, Skup M, Leibenluft E, Poldrack RA. Stopping and changing motor responses engages partially overlapping networks. Poster, Society for Neuroscience, 2008.

Kenner NM, Hidalgo-Sotelo B, Oliva A. Rapid goal-directed exploration of a scene: Scene context and salience. Poster, Vision Sciences Society, 2005.

Kenner NM, Wolfe JM. How exact is exact? In visual search a re-sized, re-oriented, or mirrored cue is just as effective as an exact cue. Poster, Vision Sciences Society, 2004.

Kenner NM, Wolfe JM. An exact picture of your target guides visual search better than any other representation. Poster, Vision Sciences Society, 2003.

Kenner NM, Poldrack RA. Portrait of a multitasking mind. Scientific American.com, Mind Matters Blog, December 15th 2009. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=multitasking-mind.