David A. Medler

Department of Psychology
University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada, V8W 3P5

Education


Ph.D. (1998) in Psychology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.
Thesis : The crossroads of Connectionism: Where do we go from here?
Advisor : M. R. W. Dawson.

M.Sc. (1994) in Psychology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.
Thesis : Training redundant artificial neural networks: Imposing biology on technology.
Advisor : M. R. W. Dawson.

B.Sc.H. (S.Sp.) (1991) in Cognitive Science at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
Thesis : Short term memory load and word recognition: A study of efficiency.
Advisor : B. E. Butler.

Postgraduate Training


04/1998 - 06/2001: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC), Carnegie Mellon University.
Advisor : James L. McClelland

Faculty and Instructor Positions


05/2015 - CurrentAssistant Teaching Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
01/2009 - CurrentSessional Instructor, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
07/2007 - 11/2007Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
09/2005 - 11/2007Adjunct Professor, College of Continuing Studies & Department of Psychology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
07/2002 - 06/2007Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
07/2001 - 06/2002Instructor, Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
09/1995 - 12/1995Instructor, Department of Psychology (UofA Extension Courses), Blue Quills First Nations College, St. Paul, AB

Community Service

2009 - 2014: Board Member, Victoria Epilepsy & Parkinson's Centre (Board President, 2011 - 2014)

Awards and Other Distinctions

1998 Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award
1998 University of Alberta Graduate Teaching Award
1996 - 1998 Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship
1996 Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize
1995 - 1996 Province of Alberta Graduate Fellowship
1995 Fellow, McDonnell Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience
1994 - 1995 Province of Alberta Graduate Fellowship
1994 University of Alberta Graduate Teaching Award

Publications

Refereed Articles

  • Sabri, M., Binder, J. R., Desai, R., Medler, D.A., Leitl, M.D., & Liebenthal, E. (2008). Attentional and linguistic interactions in speech perception, NeuroImage, 39, 1444–1456.

  • Humphries C, Binder JR, Medler D.A., Liebenthal E (2007). Time course of semantic processes during sentence comprehension: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 36, 924–932.

  • Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., Westbury, C.F., Liebenthal, E., & Buchanan, L. (2006). Tuning of the human left fusiform gyrus to sublexical orthographic structure. NeuroImage, 33, 739–748.

  • Sabri, M., Liebenthal, E., Waldron, E.J., Medler, D. A., & Binder, J.R. (2006). Effects of task difficulty on automatic deviance detection: A simultaneous ERP/fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 689–700.

  • Humphries, C., Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., & Liebenthal, E. (2006). Syntactic and semantic modulation of neural activity during auditory sentence comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 665–679.

  • Sabsevitz, D.S., Medler, D. A., Seidenberg, M., & Binder, J.R. (2005). Modulation of the semantic system by word imageability. NeuroImage, 27, 188–200.

  • Medler, D. A., Dawson, M. R. W., A. & Kingstone, A. (2005). Functional localization and double dissociations: The relationship between internal structure and behavior. Brain and Cognition, 57, 146–150.

  • Medler, D. A. (2005) Using contrastive Hebbian learning to model early auditory processing. In S.C. Kremer, J. Palmer, & S. Chen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2005 Canadian Artificial Intelligence Conference Workshop on Correlation Learning, (pp. 59 - 70)

  • Liebenthal, E., Binder, J.R., Spitzer, S.M., Possing, E.T., & Medler, D. A. (2005). Neural substrates of phonemic perception. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 1621–1631.

  • Binder, J. R., Westbury, C. F., McKiernan, K. A., Possing, E. T., & Medler, D. A. (2005). Distinct brain systems for processing concrete and abstract concepts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 905-917.

  • Binder J.R., Medler, D. A., Desai, R., Conant, L.L., & Liebenthal, E. (2005). Some neurophysiological constraints on models of word naming, NeuroImage, 27, 677–693.

  • Binder, J. R., Liebenthal, E., Possing, E. T., Medler, D. A., & Ward, B.D. (2004). Neural correlates of sensory and decision processes in auditory object identification. Nature Neuroscience, 7 (3), 295–301.

  • Medler, D. A., & Piercey, C. D. (2004). Processing ambiguous words: Are blends necessary for lexical decision? In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 944-949). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (2001). Improving the performance of symmetric diffusion networks via biologically inspired constraints. In K. Marko & P. Werbos (Eds.), IJCNN’01: Proceedings of the INNS-IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (pp. 400–405). Washington, DC: IEEE Press.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Medler, D. A., McCaughan, D. B., Willson, L., & Carbonaro, M (2000). Using extra output learning to insert a symbolic theory into a connectionist network: A case study of intertheoretic reduction. Minds and Machines, 10, 171–201.

  • Medler, D. A., McCaughan, D. B., Dawson, M. R. W., & Willson, L. (1999). When local isn’t enough: Extracting distributed rules from networks. Proceedings of the 1999 International Joint Conference on Neural Network (pp. 305i–305vi), Washington, DC

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (1999). Exploring the role of context and sparse coding on the formation of internal representations. In M. Hahn & S. C. Stoness (Eds.), Twenty First Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 393–398). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  • McCaughan, D. B., Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1999). Internal representation in networks of non-monotonic processing units. Proceedings of the 1999 International Joint Conference on Neural Network (pp. 304i–304vi), Washington, DC.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., & Medler, D. A. (1999). The Dictionary of Cognitive Science: One approach to teaching students how to create their own WWW instructional materials. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications (IJET), 5, 65–78.

  • Medler, D. A. (1998). A brief history of connectionism. Neural Computing Surveys, 1(2), 18–72. also published in: Neural Computing Surveys [On-line serial], 1, 61–101. Available: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~jagota/NCS/vol1.html

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Medler, D. A., & Berkeley, I. S. N. (1997). PDP networks can provide symbolic models that are not mere implementations of classical theories. Philosophical Psychology, 10, 25-40.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., & Medler, D. A. (1996). Of mushrooms and machine learning: Identifying algorithms in a PDP network. Canadian Artificial Intelligence, 38, 14-17. (Invited Manuscript).

  • Berkeley, I. S. N., Dawson, M. R. W., Medler, D. A., Schopflocher, D. P., & Hornsby, L. (1995). Density plots of hidden value unit activations reveal interpretable bands and microbands. Connection Science, 7, 167-186.

  • Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1994). Using redundancy to improve the performance of artificial neural networks. In R. Elio (Ed.), Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence (pp. 131–138). Palo Alto, CA: Morgan Kauffman.

  • Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1994). Training redundant artificial neural networks: Imposing biology on technology. Psychological Research, 57, 54-62.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Berkeley, I. S. N., Medler, D. A., & Schopflocher, D. P. (1994). Density plots of hidden value unit activities reveal interpretable bands and microbands. In B. MacDonald, R. Holte, and C. Ling (Eds.), Proceedings of the Machine Learning Workshop at AI/GI/VI’94 (pp.iii-1–iii-9). Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Shamanski, K. S., & Medler, D. A. (1993). From connectionism to cognitive science. In L. Goldfarb (Ed.) Proceedings of the Fifth University of New Brunswick Artificial Intelligence Symposium (pp. 295–305). Fredericton, NB: UNB Press

Refereed Commentaries

  • Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1998, April). Connectionism and cognitive theory: Commentary on Green on connectionist-explanation [11 paragraphs] Psycoloquy [On-line serial], 9(11). Available FTP: Hostname:princeton.edu Directory: pub/harnad/Psycholoquy/1998.volume.9
    File:psyc.98.9.11.connectionist-explanation.8.medler.


Presentations

Invited Colloquium

  • Medler, D. A. (March 25, 2004). Distributed representations: Activation of semantic regions by a reading task. Department of Psychology, Chicago Medical School, Chicago, IL.

  • Medler, D. A. (May 02, 2001). A Bayesian approach to the reading process: From networks to human data. Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI.

  • Medler, D. A. (January 24, 2001). Bayesian connections: Modeling aspects of the reading process. Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB.

  • Medler, D. A. (October 10, 1997). Finding value in hidden units. Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

  • Medler, D. A. (March 7, 1997). Connectionism, cognitive science, and psychology: The truth is out there. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON.

Conference Presentations

  • Graves, W., Medler, D., Desai, R., Seidenberg, M., Binder, J. (2008) “A multiparametric approach to reading aloud.” Program No. 873.17. 2008 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience.

  • Stengel, B.C., Binder, J.R., Medler, D.A., Berentsen, S.T., Seidenberg, M.S.  (2008).  Separation of Concept Knowledge into Distinct Modality-Specific Perceptual Systems.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 216.

  • Medler, D.A., Binder, J.R., Arnoldussen, A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2007). Representation of conceptual visual attributes in posterior association cortex. [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 36 (suppl.), s64.

  • Medler, D.A., Binder, J.R., Capizzi, K, & Berentsen, S. (2007). Constraint-induced phonological retraining in severe fluent aphasia: A case report. [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 230.

  • Graves, W., Medler, D., Desai, R., Grabowski, T., Seidenberg, M., Binder, J. (2007) "Neural network models of reading applied to analysis of fMRI data." Program No. 774.11. 2007 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience. Online.

  • Graves, W., Medler, D., Desai, R., Seidenberg, M., Binder, J. (2007) "Cluster analysis of a neural network hidden layer applied to fMRI data on reading." Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Conference/Dynamical Neuroscience XV, San Diego, CA.

  • Medler, D. A., Binder, J.R., Humphries, C., Arnoldussen, A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2006). Forgoing a priori assumptions: Analysis of single trials in event-related fMRI data. [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 31 (suppl.), s93.

  • Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., Arnoldussen, A., Desai, R. H., Conant, L. & Seidenberg, M.S. (2006). The neural organization of semantic knowledge reflects sensory-motor attributes. [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 31 (suppl.), s117.

  • Arnoldussen, A.L., Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2006). How Abstract Are Letters in the Fusiform Gyrus ("VWFA")? [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 186.

  • Humphries, C., Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., & Liebenthal, E. (2005). Two stages of activation and deactivation in the angular gyrus during spoken sentence comprehension [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 26 (suppl.), s49.

  • Medler, D. A., Binder, J.R., Desai, R., & Conant, L.L. (2005). Class ambiguous words share semantic representations [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 26 (suppl.), s49.

  • Sabri, M., Binder, J.R., Desai, R., Leitl, M.D., Medler, D. A., Possing, E.T., & Liebenthal, E. (2005). Attentional and linguistic interactions in speech perception [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 17.

  • Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., Possing, E.T., Desai, R., & Liebenthal, E. (2005). Testing dual-route models of word naming with fMRI [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 173–174.

  • Arnoldussen, A.L., Binder, J.R., Medler, D. A., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2005). An fMRI time course study of orthographic processing [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 116.

  • Medler, D. A., Binder, J.R., Sabsevitz, D.S., & Book, D.S. (2005). An fMRI investigation of semantic and phonological processing in left hemisphere stroke patients and age-matched controls [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 129.

  • Sabri, M., Liebenthal, E., Waldron, E. J., Medler, D. A., & Binder, J.R. (2004). Effects of Task Load on Automatic Change Detection: A simultaneous ERP/fMRI Study [Abstract]. Society for Neuroscience.

  • Sabri, M., Liebenthal, E., Waldron, E. J., Medler, D. A., & Binder, J.R. (2004). Effects of Task Difficulty on Automatic Detection of Auditory Change [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 41, S47.

  • Humphries, C., Binder J.R., Medler, D. A., Liebenthal, E. (2004) Activation patterns associated with syntactic and semantic processing during auditory sentence comprehension [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl.), 71.

  • Binder, J. R., Medler, D. A., Sabsevitz, D. S., & Westbury, C. F. (2004). Concrete and abstract word recognition: Clinical and fMRI studies [Abstract]. Presented to the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.

  • Binder, J.R., D'Angelo, B.R., Medler, D. A., & Liebenthal, E. (2004). Tuning of the 'Visual Word Form Area' to orthographic familiarity: A parametric fMRI study [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl), 66.

  • Medler, D. A., Arnoldussen, A., Binder, J.R., Desai, R.H., Conant, L.L., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2004). Activation of semantic regions by the printed word: An fMRI study [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (suppl), 173–174.

  • Medler, D. A., & Piercey, C. D. (2003). Modeling the ambiguity effect: To blend or not to blend? [Abstract]. Abstracts of the Psychonomics Society, 8, 68. Piercey, C. D., Medler, D. A., & Hebert, B. E. (2003). Ambiguity effects in lexical access: Do blends exist? [Abstract]. Abstracts of the Psychonomics Society, 8, 68.

  • Sabsevitz, D. S., Medler, D. A., McKiernan, K. A., Seidenberg, M., & Binder, J. R. (2003). Distinct neural substrates for semantic processing of concrete and abstract nouns [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 19 (Suppl.), 59.

  • Medler, D. A., Liebenthal, E., & Binder, J. R. (2003). From continuous to categorical perception: A computational model of behavioral and BOLD signal measurements [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 220–221.

  • Liebenthal, E., Binder, J. R., Spitzer, S. M., Possing, E. T., & Medler, D. A. (2003). Neural correlates of categorical perception [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 103–104.

  • Medler, D. A. & Binder, J. R. (2002). A connectionist approach to modeling the fMRI BOLD response during a signal detection task [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 141–142.

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (2001). Context facilitates perception after training with unfamiliar word-like strings [Abstract]. Abstracts of the Psychonomics Society, 6, 66

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (2001). Supervised and unsupervised learning of independent sources using symmetric diffusion networks [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 142.

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (2000). Context effects on learning wordlike visual stimuli [Abstract]. Abstracts of the Psychonomics Society, 5, 73.

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (2000). Context effects on learning letterlike stimuli: Modeling and empirical evidence [Abstract]. Talk presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology, Kingston, ON (08/2000).

  • Medler, D. A., & McClelland, J. L. (1999). The effects of context and sparcity on the development of internal representations [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 64.

  • Piercey, C. D., McCaughan, D. B., Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1999). Coarse coding of local features in value unit networks: A case study of the kinship problem [Abstract]. Presented at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, & Cognitive Science, Edmonton, AB.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Medler, D. A., McCaughan, D. B., Willson, L., & Carbonaro, M. (1999). From decision trees to PDP networks: A new wave intertheoretic reduction [Abstract]. Presented at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, & Cognitive Science, Edmonton, AB.

  • Piercey, C. D., McCaughan, D. B., Medler, D. A., & Dawson, M. R. W. (1999). Interpreting local features in networks of value units [Abstract]. Presented at the First International Interdisciplinary Conference on Advances in Qualitative Methods, 1999, Edmonton, AB.

  • Dawson, M. R. W., Medler, D. A., McCaughan, D. B., Willson, L., & Carbonaro, M. (1999). Extracting distributed rules from networks: A case study in theory translation [Abstract]. Presented at the First International Interdisciplinary Conference on Advances in Qualitative Methods, 1999, Edmonton, AB.

  • Medler, D. A. (1998). A connectionist model of semantic network disturbances evident in Alzheimer’s patients [Abstract]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Suppl.), 31.

  • Medler, D. A., Dawson, M. R. W., Kingstone, A., & Panasiuk, E. (1996). Relating behavioral dissociations with the internal structure of PDP networks: A lesioning study [Abstract]. Poster presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA (04/1996).

  • Medler, D. A., Berkeley, I. S. N., Dawson, M. R. W., & Schopflocher, D. P. (1994). Finding featural interpretations within a connectionist network [Abstract]. Talk presented at the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Sciences. Vancouver, BC (06/1994).

  • Medler, D. A. (1993). Training redundant artificial neural networks [Abstract]. Poster presented at the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Sciences. Toronto, ON (07/1993).

Database, Video, or other Research/Clinical Contributions

  • Binder, J.R., & Medler, D. A. (2006). The LIL Aphasia Battery: A Computerized Test of Language Functioning.

  • Medler, D. A., & Binder, J.R. (2005). MCWord: An On-Line Orthographic Database of the English Language. http://www.neuro.mcw.edu/mcword/

  • Medler, D. A., Arnoldussen, A., Binder, J.R., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2005). The Wisconsin Perceptual Attribute Ratings Database. http://www.neuro.mcw.edu/ratings/

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