Abhilasha Kumar

Abhilasha Kumar

Portland, Maine, United States
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About

I am a computational cognitive scientist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Bowdoin…

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Experience

  • Bowdoin College Graphic

    Bowdoin College

    Portland, Maine, United States

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    Portland, Maine, United States

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    Greater Boston

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    St Louis, Missouri, United States

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    Greater St. Louis Area

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    New Delhi Area, India

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    New Delhi Area, India

Education

  • Washington University in St. Louis Graphic

    Washington University in St. Louis

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    -- Undertook courses in cognitive science, machine learning, and advanced statistics
    -- Mentored 15+ undergraduate research assistants in statistical and research-based projects
    -- Published 9 research papers in top-ranking scientific journals and presented talks and posters at national and international conferences

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    - Completed a research-oriented program with focus on cognitive science
    - Developed Cognitive Experiments on Life-Logs, a novel, web-based memory testing paradigm using automated text-based analysis of e-mail communications
    - Awarded a PG Diploma in Liberal Studies through the Young India Fellowship Programme

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    -- Presented master's thesis on Weight Transmitter Algorithm for data mining association rules
    -- Undertook courses in discrete mathematics, programming, algorithms and statistics
    -- Awarded "Significant Contribution in Writing" by Board for Student Publications
    -- Coordinator for Literati (Annual Literary Festival) and Tryst (Creative Team, Annual Technical Festival)

Volunteer Experience

  • National Service Scheme, IITD Graphic

    Volunteer

    National Service Scheme, IITD

    - 4 years 9 months

    Education

    Volunteered for NGO Khoj and in teaching school students at Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Delhi.
    Developed modules for primary class education in collaboration with Pankhuri Foundation
    Completed a total of 100+ hours of Social Service and certified an Excellent volunteer

Publications

  • Semantic Memory: A Review of Methods, Models, and Current Challenges

    Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

    This paper (1) reviews traditional and modern computational models of semantic memory, within the umbrella of network (free association-based), feature (property generation norms-based), and distributional semantic (natural language corpora-based) models, (2) discusses the contribution of these models to important debates in the literature regarding knowledge representation (localist vs. distributed representations) and learning (error-free/Hebbian learning vs. error-driven/predictive…

    This paper (1) reviews traditional and modern computational models of semantic memory, within the umbrella of network (free association-based), feature (property generation norms-based), and distributional semantic (natural language corpora-based) models, (2) discusses the contribution of these models to important debates in the literature regarding knowledge representation (localist vs. distributed representations) and learning (error-free/Hebbian learning vs. error-driven/predictive learning), and (3) evaluates how modern computational models (neural network, retrieval-based, and topic models) are revisiting the traditional “static” conceptualization of semantic memory and tackling important challenges in semantic modeling such as addressing temporal, contextual, and attentional influences, as well as incorporating grounding and compositionality into semantic representations.

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  • Attempted Prime Retrieval is a Double-Edged Sword: Facilitation and Disruption in Repeated Lexical Retrieval

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition

    The phenomenological experience of lexical retrieval involves repeated, active attempts to retrieve phonologically and/or semantically related information. However, the influence of these multiple retrieval attempts on subsequent lexical retrieval is presently unknown. We investigated the influence of passively viewing or actively retrieving different types of information at the critical moment preceding lexical retrieval through a novel priming paradigm. Participants attempted to retrieve…

    The phenomenological experience of lexical retrieval involves repeated, active attempts to retrieve phonologically and/or semantically related information. However, the influence of these multiple retrieval attempts on subsequent lexical retrieval is presently unknown. We investigated the influence of passively viewing or actively retrieving different types of information at the critical moment preceding lexical retrieval through a novel priming paradigm. Participants attempted to retrieve target words (e.g., abdicate) from low-frequency descriptions (e.g., to formally renounce a throne). Target retrieval was preceded by passive viewing (Experiment 1), or active retrieval of the prime word (Experiments 2-6). Primes were either “both” semantically and phonologically related (e.g., abandon), only phonologically related (e.g., abdomen), only semantically related (e.g., resign), or unrelated (e.g., obvious) to the target word. When primes were passively viewed, phonological facilitation in target retrieval accuracy was observed. In contrast, when participants actively attempted to retrieve primes from their definitions, no phonological facilitation was observed. Importantly, successful retrieval of semantic and “both” primes facilitated subsequent target retrieval, whereas, failure to retrieve semantic and “both” primes inhibited subsequent target retrieval. These facilitatory and inhibitory influences of prime retrieval for semantic and “both” primes were independent of feedback on retrieval performance (Experiment 4) and participants’ overall knowledge of the primes and targets (Experiment 5), and also did not extend to retrieval from episodic memory (Experiment 6). The findings are consistent with ongoing retrospective processes during target retrieval, which re-engage prime retrieval success or failure and consequently produce benefits and costs during repeated retrieval from semantic memory.

    Other authors
    • David Balota
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  • Distant Connectivity and Multiple-Step Priming in Large-Scale Semantic Networks

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition

    We examined 3 different network models of representing semantic knowledge (5,018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, and an association-correlation network) to predict lexical priming effects. In Experiment 1, participants made semantic relatedness judgments for word pairs with varying path lengths. Response latencies for judgments followed a quadratic relationship with network path lengths, replicating and extending a recent pattern reported by Kenett, Levi, Anaki, and Faust…

    We examined 3 different network models of representing semantic knowledge (5,018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, and an association-correlation network) to predict lexical priming effects. In Experiment 1, participants made semantic relatedness judgments for word pairs with varying path lengths. Response latencies for judgments followed a quadratic relationship with network path lengths, replicating and extending a recent pattern reported by Kenett, Levi, Anaki, and Faust (2017) for an 800-word association-correlation network in Hebrew. In Experiment 2, participants identified target words in a progressive demasking task, immediately following a briefly presented prime (120 ms). Response latencies to identify the target showed a linear trend for all network path lengths. Importantly, there were statistically significant differences between relatively distant words in the step distance networks, for example, path lengths 4 and beyond, suggesting that association networks can indeed capture distant functional semantic relationships. Additional comparisons with 2 distributional models (LSA and word2vec) suggested that distributional models also successfully predicted response latencies, although there appear to be fundamental differences in the types of semantic relationships captured by the different models.

    Other authors
    • David Balota
    • Mark Steyvers
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  • Distant Concept Connectivity in Network-Based and Spatial Word Representations

    Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

    It is presently unclear how localized, word association network representations compare to distributed, spatial representations in representing distant concepts and accounting for priming effects. We compared and contrasted 4 models of representing semantic knowledge (5018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, an association-correlation network and word2vec spatial representations) to predict semantic priming performance for distant concepts. In Experiment 1, response latencies…

    It is presently unclear how localized, word association network representations compare to distributed, spatial representations in representing distant concepts and accounting for priming effects. We compared and contrasted 4 models of representing semantic knowledge (5018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, an association-correlation network and word2vec spatial representations) to predict semantic priming performance for distant concepts. In Experiment 1, response latencies for relatedness judgments for word-pairs followed a quadratic relationship with network path lengths and spatial cosines, replicating and extending a pattern recently reported by Kenett, Levi, Anaki, and Faust (2017) for an 800-word Hebrew network. In Experiment 2, response latencies to identify a word through progressive demasking showed a linear trend for path lengths and cosines, suggesting that simple association networks can capture distant semantic relationships. Further analyses indicated that spatial models and correlation networks are less sensitive to direct associations and likely represent more higher-level relationships between words.

    Other authors
    • David Balota
    • Mark Steyvers
    See publication

  • Converging semantic and phonological information in lexical retrieval and selection in young and older adults.

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition

    The present experiments investigated the influence of combined phonological and semantic information on lexical retrieval, metacognitive retrieval states, and selection in an immediate multiple-choice task. Younger and older adults attempted to retrieve words (e.g., abdicate) from low-frequency word definitions. Retrieval was preceded by primes that were “both” semantically and phonologically related (e.g., abandon), phonologically related (e.g., abdomen), semantically related (e.g., resign)…

    The present experiments investigated the influence of combined phonological and semantic information on lexical retrieval, metacognitive retrieval states, and selection in an immediate multiple-choice task. Younger and older adults attempted to retrieve words (e.g., abdicate) from low-frequency word definitions. Retrieval was preceded by primes that were “both” semantically and phonologically related (e.g., abandon), phonologically related (e.g., abdomen), semantically related (e.g., resign), or unrelated (e.g., pink). Younger and older adults benefited from phonological primes in retrieval, and also showed reduced, but reliable, facilitation from “both” primes. Younger and older adults also indicated that they were likely to “know” the answer more often after any related primes compared with unrelated primes. Because there was no facilitation in actual retrieval after semantic primes, this reflects a false “knowing” response. After each retrieval attempt, participants were given the correct answer along with the 4 primes in a multiple-choice test. Both younger and older adults were likely to false alarm to the “both” and semantic alternatives. When instructed that the prime was not the answer, younger adults decreased their false alarms, but not the older adults. With masked, briefly presented primes, younger adults mimicked the false alarms shown by older adults, suggesting that the high false alarm rates in older adults reflect an inability to discriminate the source of activation. The present experiments provide strong evidence for age-invariant phonological facilitation, and also suggest that overlapping semantic information moderates the facilitatory effect of phonological information on retrieval, and also produces age-related differences on an immediate multiple-choice task.

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  • The immediate benefits and long-term consequences of briefly presented masked primes on episodic recollection

    Journal of Memory and Language

    Within-trial priming paradigms have been widely used to measure lexical retrieval and familiarity-based processes in speeded pronunciation, perceptual identification, lexical decision, lexical retrieval, and episodic recognition tasks. Here, we introduce a novel within-trial priming paradigm to examine cued recall, which is considered a more recollection-based task. In each experiment, participants initially studied a list of paired-associates (e.g., BADGE-gold). During each recall test trial…

    Within-trial priming paradigms have been widely used to measure lexical retrieval and familiarity-based processes in speeded pronunciation, perceptual identification, lexical decision, lexical retrieval, and episodic recognition tasks. Here, we introduce a novel within-trial priming paradigm to examine cued recall, which is considered a more recollection-based task. In each experiment, participants initially studied a list of paired-associates (e.g., BADGE-gold). During each recall test trial, 500 ms after the onset of the stimulus cue (BADGE-??????), a pattern-masked prime was briefly presented for either 48 ms or 125 ms, with the task to recall the word (e.g., gold) paired with the cue (BADGE). Across seven experiments, the primes were identical (gold), semantically related (silver), orthographically related (good), or unrelated (chair) to the to-be-recalled response item (gold). The results consistently indicated that the masked identity primes benefited immediate recall at both the 48 ms and 125 ms durations. There was no benefit from the orthographically related prime condition, suggesting that participants were not using partial letter information as an additional cue for memory retrieval. Semantically related primes only produced a benefit in immediate recall at the 125 ms prime duration. Delayed cued recall performance indicated that the facilitatory priming effects observed in immediate recall were eliminated. In addition, results from conditional analyses suggest that the benefits of retrieval in an immediate recall condition are reversed in the delayed recall condition. We consider multiple interpretations of these delayed recall results and argue that the results are in part due to priming influencing an activation-based mechanism in the immediate recall task, which decreases the retrieval demands for the response item to the paired associate cue, and hence, decreases the long-term benefits of retrieval practice.

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  • Autobiographical recall of personally familiar names and temporal information in e-mails: An automatic analytic approach using e-mail communications

    Behavior Research Methods

    An important question that arises from autobiographical memory research is whether the variables that influence memory in the laboratory also drive memory for autobiographical episodes in real life. We explored this question within the context of e-mail communications and investigated the variables that influence recall for personally familiar names and temporal information in e-mails. We designed a Web-based program that analyzed each participant’s year-old sent e-mail archive and applied…

    An important question that arises from autobiographical memory research is whether the variables that influence memory in the laboratory also drive memory for autobiographical episodes in real life. We explored this question within the context of e-mail communications and investigated the variables that influence recall for personally familiar names and temporal information in e-mails. We designed a Web-based program that analyzed each participant’s year-old sent e-mail archive and applied textual analysis algorithms to identify a set of sentences likely to be memorable. These sentences were then used as the stimuli in a cued recall task. Participants saw two sentences from their sent e-mail as a cue and attempted to recall the name of the e-mail recipient. Participants also rated the vividness of recall for the e-mail conversation and estimated the month in which they had written the e-mail. Linear mixed-effect analyses revealed that recipient name recall accuracy decreased with longer retention intervals and increased with greater frequency of contact with the recipient. Also, with longer retention intervals, participants dated e-mails as being more recent than their actual month. This telescoping error was moderately larger for e-mails with greater sentiment. These findings suggest that memory for personally familiar names and temporal information in e-mails closely follows the patterns for autobiographical memory and proper-name recall found in laboratory settings. This study introduces an innovative, Web-based experimental method for studying the cognitive processes related to autobiographical memories using ecologically valid, naturalistic communications.

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  • Unpeeling the Start-Up Ecosystem

    Flexing It Blog

    An analysis of the top 50 incubators and accelerators in India for Flexing It - an online, curated marketplace that connects professionals and organisations for projects, consulting assignments and other short-term, part-time and flexible work structures

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  • Caste No Bar

    openDemocracy

    Dalit literature has emerged as a powerful force against the exploitation of lower castes in India. But the revolutionary transformation that it seeks to enact can only occur through a plurality of voices, engaged in meaningful dialogue.

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  • When Walls Speak

    The Hindu

    Lady Aiko, a Japanese graffiti artist, transforms the streets of Delhi with her work.

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Languages

  • English

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • Hindi

    Native or bilingual proficiency

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