D. Alexander Varakin

Assistant Professor of Psychology

General Interests
"In general, I am interested in how visual processes contribute to cognition as a whole, how cognition as a whole impacts visual processes and how these interactions are shaped by, and influence, the way we think about and act in the world.

Much of my research has been on failures of visual awareness. People seem to keep track of a very small amount of visual information from one view to the next; that is, people don't see everything they think they do. There are numerous real-world implications for this research, for example, in the area of computer interface design. In more recent work, I have been investigating how people mentally represent pictures and other kinds of visual information in short- and long-term memory. In one series of experiments, a colleague and I demonstrated that the act of recognizing previously viewed pictures may not draw upon memory representations that are very picture-like. In other words, the memories we use to recognize photographs are not 'photographic'."

Years at Knox: 2006 to present

Education
Ph.D., 2006, Vanderbilt University.
M.A., 2003, Kent State University.
B.S., 2001, James Madison University.

Recent Accomplishments
Selected Publications
"Object appearance and picture-specific viewpoint are not integrated in long-term memory." Co-authored with L. Loschky, to appear in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

"Implicit Learning for Probable Changes in a Visual Change Detection Task." Co-authored with Beck, M.R., Angelone, B.L., Levin, D.T., and Peterson, M.S. Con-sciousness & Cognition 17.4 (2008): 1192-1208.

"Scene structure enhances change detection" Co-authored with D.T. Levin, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61.4 (2008): 543-551.

"Both comparison and representation failures cause real-world change blindness." Co-authored with D.T Levin and K.M. Collins. Perception 36.5 (2007): 737-749.

"Color Onsets and Offsets, and Luminance Changes Can Cause Change Blindness." Co-authored with J.G. Arrington and D.T. Levin. Perception 35 (2006): 1665-1678.

"Change blindness and visual memory: Visual representations get rich and act poor." Co-authored with D.T. Levin. British Journal of Psychology 97.1 (2006): 51-77.

"Unseen and unaware: Implications of recent research on failures of visual awareness for human-computer interface design." Co-authored with D.T. Levin and R. Fidler. Human-Computer Interaction 19.4 (2004): 389-422.

Selected Presentations

"Object appearance and scene viewpoint are not integrated in long-term memory.", With L. Loschky. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, Florida, 2009.

"From where did I see that?" With L. Loschky. Talk presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, Illinois, 2009.

"Remembering the unseen and forgetting the scene." Invited talk presented at the Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, 2008.

"Auditory Effect Anticipation and Expert Pianists." With Knox student, Rairdon, T.J. Talk presented at the 2nd Annual Illinoisy Data Conference, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, 2008.

"Focusing on Change Detection." Talk presented at the 1st Annual Illinoisy Data Conference, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, 2007.

What Students Say
"Dr. Varakin is one of many professors at Knox who is able to build a mentoring relationship with students while also nurturing their creativity and independence. I was interested in the cognitive processes involved in musical action, and Dr. Varakin was enthusiastic about helping me develop the technical skills and research competencies necessary to further explore and finally test my ideas. He offers many opportunities for knowledge sharing inside and outside of the classroom, and always supports students who have a desire to learn more about psychology or become involved in his research."
-Tim Rairdon, Psychology Major

Contact
309-341-7334
avarakin@knox.edu