Eve A. Isham

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Scholarly Contributions

Chapters

• Isham, E. A. (2018). Saving "Free Will" from science.. In Essays on Consciousness: Towards a New Paradigm.
• Banks, W. P., & Isham, E. A. (2011). Do we really know what we are doing? Implications of reported time of decision for theories of volition. In Conscious Will and Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.

Journals/Publications

• Isham, E. A., & Izadifar, M. (2023). Mental Imagery and Time. Time and Science, n/a.
• Izadifar, M., Formuli, A., Isham, E. A., & Paolini, M. (2023). Subjective time perception in musical imagery: An fMRI study on musicians. PsyCh Journal. doi:10.1002/pchj.677
• Pan, M., Isham, E. A., & Ryan, A. M. (2023). Developing a small participant framework: An investigation of mode choice influential factors
  Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, n/a.
• Isham, E. A., & Wall, T. A. (2022). Differentiating the reported time of intent and action on the basis of temporal binding behaviors and confidence ratings. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics.
• Isham, E. A., & Lomayesva, S. (2022). Involuntary classroom transition moderates the effect of Present Hedonistic perspective on the belief in free will. Personality and individual differences, 186, 111321.
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  Mitigation plans during the early stages of COVID-19 provided a unique, antagonistic environment in which drastic changes occurred quickly and did so with minimal freedom of choice (e.g., involuntary transition from in-person to online classroom). As such, individuals of different beliefs and perspectives would respond differently to these mitigations. We examined the interaction between the Present-Hedonistic (PH) perspective and involuntary classroom transition on the belief in free will ( = 131). PH-oriented individuals exhibit a strong desire for choice while also welcome new opportunities and change. Importantly, the perceived freedom of choice and capacity for change also serve as foundational constructs to the belief in free will. Our results revealed that involuntary transition weakened the free will belief in those with lower PH but did not affect those of higher PH orientation. These findings suggest that the interplay between the perception of choice and capacity for change account for how individuals responded to the COVID-19 pandemic mitigation plans.
• Liang, M., Zheng, J., Isham, E., & Ekstrom, A. (2021). Common and Distinct Roles of Frontal Midline Theta and Occipital Alpha Oscillations in Coding Temporal Intervals and Spatial Distances. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 33(11), 2311-2327.
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  Judging how far away something is and how long it takes to get there is critical to memory and navigation. Yet, the neural codes for spatial and temporal information remain unclear, particularly the involvement of neural oscillations in maintaining such codes. To address these issues, we designed an immersive virtual reality environment containing teleporters that displace participants to a different location after entry. Upon exiting the teleporters, participants made judgments from two given options regarding either the distance they had traveled (spatial distance condition) or the duration they had spent inside the teleporters (temporal duration condition). We wirelessly recorded scalp EEG while participants navigated in the virtual environment by physically walking on an omnidirectional treadmill and traveling through teleporters. An exploratory analysis revealed significantly higher alpha and beta power for short-distance versus long-distance traversals, whereas the contrast also revealed significantly higher frontal midline delta-theta-alpha power and global beta power increases for short versus long temporal duration teleportation. Analyses of occipital alpha instantaneous frequencies revealed their sensitivity for both spatial distances and temporal durations, suggesting a novel and common mechanism for both spatial and temporal coding. We further examined the resolution of distance and temporal coding by classifying discretized distance bins and 250-msec time bins based on multivariate patterns of 2- to 30-Hz power spectra, finding evidence that oscillations code fine-scale time and distance information. Together, these findings support partially independent coding schemes for spatial and temporal information, suggesting that low-frequency oscillations play important roles in coding both space and time.
• Zheng, L., Gao, Z., McAvan, A. S., Isham, E. A., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2021). Partially overlapping spatial environments trigger reinstatement in hippocampus and schema representations in prefrontal cortex. Nature communications, 12(1), 6231.
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  When we remember a city that we have visited, we retrieve places related to finding our goal but also non-target locations within this environment. Yet, understanding how the human brain implements the neural computations underlying holistic retrieval remains unsolved, particularly for shared aspects of environments. Here, human participants learned and retrieved details from three partially overlapping environments while undergoing high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our findings show reinstatement of stores even when they are not related to a specific trial probe, providing evidence for holistic environmental retrieval. For stores shared between cities, we find evidence for pattern separation (representational orthogonalization) in hippocampal subfield CA2/3/DG and repulsion in CA1 (differentiation beyond orthogonalization). Additionally, our findings demonstrate that medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) stores representations of the common spatial structure, termed schema, across environments. Together, our findings suggest how unique and common elements of multiple spatial environments are accessed computationally and neurally.
• Isham, E. A. (2020). Temporal experience modifies future thoughts: Manipulation of Libet's W influences difficulty assessment during a decision-making task. PloS one, 15(11), e0237680.
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  Past studies have employed the subjective experience of decision time (Libet's W) as an index of consciousness, marking the moment at which the agent first becomes aware of a decision. In the current study, we examined whether the temporal experience of W affects subsequent experience related to the action. Specifically, we tested whether W influenced the perception of difficulty in a decision-making task, hypothesizing that temporal awareness of W might influence the sense of difficulty. Consistent with our predictions, when W was perceived as early or late, participants subsequently rated the decision difficulty to be easy or difficult, respectively (Exp.1). Further investigation showed that perceived difficulty, however, did not influence W (Exp.2). Together, our findings suggest a unidirectional relationship such that W plays a role in the metacognition of difficulty evaluation. The results imply that subjective temporal experience of decision time modifies the consequential sense of difficulty.
• Isham, E. A., Ziskin, E. M., & Peterson, M. A. (2019). Limitations of Hoerl and McCormack's dual systems model of temporal consciousness. The Behavioral and brain sciences, 42, e256.
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  Hoerl & McCormack's dual systems framework provides a new avenue toward the scientific investigation of temporal cognition. However, some shortcomings of the model should be considered. These issues include their reliance on a somewhat vague consideration of "systems" rather than specific computational processes. Moreover, the model does not consider the subjective nature of temporal experience or the role of consciousness in temporal cognition.
• Isham, E. A., Le, C., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2018). Rightward and leftward biases in temporal reproduction of objects represented in central and peripheral spaces.. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2017.12.006
• Ekstrom, A. D., & Isham, E. A. (2017). Human spatial navigation: Representations across dimensions and scales.. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 17, 84-89. doi:DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.06.005
• Isham, E. A., Wulf, K., Mejia, C., & Krisst, L. (2017). Deliberation period during easy and difficult decisions: Re-examining Libet’s “veto” window in a more ecologically valid framework.. Neuroscience of Consciousness. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix002
• Isham, E. A., & Geng, J. J. (2013). Looking time predicts choice but not aesthetic value. PLOS. doi:Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071698
• Sawaki, R., Rotshtein, P., Isham, E. A., Geng, J. J., & Diquattro, N. E. (2012). Distracter rejection depends on mechanisms of attentional shifting. Journal of Vision, 12(9), 1343-1343. doi:10.1167/12.9.1343
• Ekstrom, A. D., Copara, M. S., Isham, E. A., Wang, W. C., & Yonelinas, A. P. (2011). Dissociable networks involved in spatial and temporal order source retrieval. NeuroImage, 56(3), 1803-13.
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  Space and time are important components of our episodic memories. Without this information, we cannot determine the "where and when" of our recent memories, rendering it difficult to disambiguate individual episodes from each other. The neural underpinnings of spatial and temporal order memory in humans remain unclear, in part because of difficulties in disentangling the contributions of these two types of source information. To address this issue, we conducted an experiment in which participants first navigated a virtual city, experiencing unique routes in a specific temporal order and learning about the spatial layout of the city. Spatial and temporal order information were dissociated in our task such that learning one type of information did not facilitate the other behaviorally. This allowed us to then address the extent to which the two types of information involved functionally distinct or overlapping brain areas. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants retrieved information about the relative distance of stores within the city (spatial task) and the temporal order of stores from each other (temporal task). Comparable hippocampal activity was observed during these two tasks, but greater prefrontal activity was seen during temporal order retrieval whereas greater parahippocampal activity was seen during spatial retrieval. We suggest that while the brain possesses dissociable networks for maintaining and representing spatial layout and temporal order components of episodic memory, this information may converge into a common representation for source memory in areas such as the hippocampus.
• Isham, E. A., & Geng, J. J. (2011). Rewarding performance feedback alters reported time of action. Consciousness and cognition, 20(4), 1577-85.
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  Past studies have shown that the perceived time of actions is retrospectively influenced by post-action events. The current study examined whether rewarding performance feedback (even when false) altered the reported time of action. In Experiment 1, participants performed a speeded button press task and received monetary reward for a presumed "fast," or a monetary punishment for a presumed "slow" response. Rewarded trials resulted in the false perception that the response action occurred earlier than punished trials. In Experiments 2 and 3, the need for a speeded response and reward were independently manipulated in order to decouple the cognitive and reward components in the feedback signal. When tested independently, neither variable affected the judged time of action. We conclude that meaningful feedback (fast or slow) is only used when made salient by reward, to modulate the judged time of an action.
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W. P., Ekstrom, A. D., & Stern, J. A. (2011). Deceived and distorted: game outcome retrospectively determines the reported time of action. Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 37(5), 1458-69.
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  Previous work suggested the association between intentionality and the reported time of action was exclusive, with intentionality as the primary facilitator to the mental time compression between the reported time of action and its effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). In three experiments, we examined whether mental time compression could also be observed in an unintended action. Participants performed an externally cued key press task that elicited one of two possible tones. The reported time of action shifted closer to the tone when the tone was used to indicate the winner of a race (Exp.2) compared to when the tone was meaningless and did not indicate winning (Exp.1). This suggests that reported time of an unintended action could shift toward the effect in some contexts. Furthermore, the results from Exp.2 and Exp.3 (tones were substituted with verbal feedback) showed that a presumed winning action was judged to occur earlier whereas a presumed losing action was judged to be later. These findings therefore support the view that the reported time of action is reconstructed from known temporal information rather than determined by intentionality.
• Isham, E. A., Ekstrom, A. D., & Banks, W. P. (2010). Effects of youth authorship on the appraisal of paintings. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4, 235-246.
• Banks, W. P., & Isham, E. A. (2009). We infer rather than perceive the moment we decided to act. Psychological science, 20(1), 17-21.
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  A seminal experiment found that the reported time of a decision to perform a simple action was at least 300 ms after the onset of brain activity that normally preceded the action. In Experiment 1, we presented deceptive feedback (an auditory beep) 5 to 60 ms after the action to signify a movement time later than the actual movement. The reported time of decision moved forward in time linearly with the delay in feedback, and came after the muscular initiation of the response at all but the 5-ms delay. In Experiment 2, participants viewed their hand with and without a 120-ms video delay, and gave a time of decision 44 ms later with than without the delay. We conclude that participants' report of their decision time is largely inferred from the apparent time of response. The perception of a hypothetical brain event prior to the response could have, at most, a small influence.
• Quiroga, R. Q., Mukamel, R., Isham, E. A., Malach, R., & Fried, I. (2008). Human single-neuron responses at the threshold of conscious recognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(9), 3599-604.
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  We studied the responses of single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe while subjects viewed familiar faces, animals, and landmarks. By progressively shortening the duration of stimulus presentation, coupled with backward masking, we show two striking properties of these neurons. (i) Their responses are not statistically different for the 33-ms, 66-ms, and 132-ms stimulus durations, and only for the 264-ms presentations there is a significantly higher firing. (ii) These responses follow conscious perception, as indicated by the subjects' recognition report. Remarkably, when recognized, a single snapshot as brief as 33 ms was sufficient to trigger strong single-unit responses far outlasting stimulus presentation. These results suggest that neurons in the medial temporal lobe can reflect conscious recognition by "all-or-none" responses.
• Ekstrom, A. D., Kahana, M. J., Caplan, J. B., Fields, T. A., Isham, E. A., Newman, E. L., & Fried, I. (2003). Cellular networks underlying human spatial navigation. Nature, 425(6954), 184-8.
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  Place cells of the rodent hippocampus constitute one of the most striking examples of a correlation between neuronal activity and complex behaviour in mammals. These cells increase their firing rates when the animal traverses specific regions of its surroundings, providing a context-dependent map of the environment. Neuroimaging studies implicate the hippocampus and the parahippocampal region in human navigation. However, these regions also respond selectively to visual stimuli. It thus remains unclear whether rodent place coding has a homologue in humans or whether human navigation is driven by a different, visually based neural mechanism. We directly recorded from 317 neurons in the human medial temporal and frontal lobes while subjects explored and navigated a virtual town. Here we present evidence for a neural code of human spatial navigation based on cells that respond at specific spatial locations and cells that respond to views of landmarks. The former are present primarily in the hippocampus, and the latter in the parahippocampal region. Cells throughout the frontal and temporal lobes responded to the subjects' navigational goals and to conjunctions of place, goal and view.

Presentations

• Isham, E. A. (2020, February). Timing of intent in consciousness research.. UA Cognitive Science Colloquium.
  More info

  Isham, E.A. (2020, February). Timing of intent in consciousness research. UA Cognitive Science Colloquium, Tucson, AZ
• Isham, E. A. (2019, February). Navigating time and space Mental time line and other curiosities of timing that may not involve space. Time Research Forum.
• Isham, E. A. (2019, November). Time and Space. Timing Research Forum 2. , Queretaro, Mexico: Timing Research Forum.
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  Time and space symposium. Time Research Forum 2, Queretaro, Mexico. *Symposium Organizer
• Isham, E. A., Lomayesva, S., & Ziskin, E. (2019, June). Timing of intent and action consequences in applied settings.. ASSC.
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  Isham, E.A., Lomayesva, S.L., Ziskin, E.M. (2019, June). Timing of intent and action consequences in applied settings. The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, London, Ontario, Canada.
• Isham, E. A. (2018, April). Time and Consciousness. The Science of Consciousness. Tucson, AZ.
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  Workshop
• Isham, E. A., John, B., & hui, J. (2018, April). Psychotherapy and Free Will. The Science of Consciousness. Tucson, AZ.
• Isham, E. A. (2017, May). Timing of Intent.. Speaker series. Nevada, Reno.
• Isham, E. A., Wulf, K., Mejia, C., & Krisst, L. (2016, November). Consciousness and decision complexity. Psychonomic Society. Chicago, IL.
• Isham, E. A. (2015, July). The timing of intent for moral and non-consequential decisions.. Conference on Time, Identity, and Future,. Grindavik, Iceland.
• Isham, E. A., & Wulf, K. (2015, November). Temporal relationship between the timing of intent and execution of easy and difficult choices.. Psychonomic Society. Chicago, IL.
• Isham, E. A. (2014, April). Saving Free Will from Science: Reported Moment of Intention is a Biased Measure of Consciousness.. Distinguished Speaker Series, San Francisco State University. San Francisco, CA.
• Isham, E. A. (2014, October). Contextual elements determine the perceived time of intent and action.. Conscious experience of time workshop. Berlin, Germany.
• Isham, E. A., & Wulf, K. (2014, November). Reported moment of intent is a biased measure of consciousness.. Psychonomic Society.
• Isham, E. A., Le, C., Lynch, A., Luck, S., Prinzmetal, W., & Geng, J. J. (2014, July). New evidence for the differences in time perception during foveal and parafoveal vision.. Association for the Scientiific Study of Consciousness. Brisbane, Australia.
• Isham, E. A. (2013, June). It's about time!. Northern California Consciousness. Davis, CA.
• Isham, E. A. (2013, November). Dangerous Times: How Timing and Temporal Reports Threatens Free Will.. Psychonomic Society. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Isham, E. A., Wall, T., Sareshwala, F., Butler, J., Harlow, I., Yonelinas, A., & Geng, J. (2013, July). Quantifying temporal consciousness. Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness. San Diego.
• Isham, E. A. (2012, July). Humbly Saving Free Will. Cognitive Science Association for Interdisciplinary Learning. Hood River, OR.
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., & Geng, J. (2012, April). Saving Free Will From Science.. Plenary Session on Time and the Brain, biannual meeting of Toward a Science of Consciousness. Tucson, AZ.
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., Ekstrom, A., & Geng, J. (2011, October). Aesthetic preference of visual stimuli.. Vision Science and Advanced Retinal Imaging Laboratory.
• Isham, E. A., Geng, J., Banks, W., Ekstrom, A. D., & Stern, J. (2011, July). Isham,Fame and Fortune: External Information Guides Perception.. Cognitive Science Association for Interdisciplinary Learning,. Hood River, OR.
• Ekstrom, A. D., Isham, E. A., Copara, M., Chiang, A., Patel, D., & Aarons, B. (2010, July). Ekstrom, A.D., Isham, E.A., Copara, M., Chiang, A., Patel, D., & Aarons, B. (2010, July). Independent and Conjunctive Processing of Spatial and Temporal Information in Episodic Memory. R.. Cognitive Science Association for Interdisciplinary Learning,. Hood River, OR.
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., Ekstrom, A., & Stern, J. (2010, July). Game outcome retrospectively determines the time of action.. Paper presented at the annual meeting for Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Toronto, Canada..
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., Ekstrom, A., & Stern, J. (2010, July). Winning is earlier, losing is later: A temporal illusion.. Cognitive Science Association for Interdisciplinary Learning. Hood River, OR.
• Isham, E. A., Ekstrom, A., & Banks, W. (2010, April). My kid could paint that: A bias toward children’s artworks.. Western Psychological Association. Cancun, Mexico.
• Isham, E. A., Hokanson, K., & Banks, W. (2006, April). Unconscious processing of unattended words. Toward a Science of Consciousness. Tucson, AZ.

Poster Presentations

• Liang, M., Harootonian, S., Isham, E. A., Drake, K. W., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2019, November). Low-frequency neural oscillations code distance and temporal duration as measured with scalp EEG and hippocampal intracranial recordings.. Society for Neuroscience. Chicago, IL.
• Lomayesva, S., Liang, M., Horkey, S., Gaffney, H., & Isham, E. A. (2019, June). Timing of urge, readiness potential and individual differences.. ASSC. London, Ontario, Canada.
  More info

  Lomayesva, S.L., Liang, M., Horkey, S., Gaffney, H., & Isham, E.A. (2019, June). Timing of urge, readiness potential and individual differences. The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, London, Ontario, Canada.
• Wall, T., Wei, X., & Isham, E. A. (2019, June). Dissociating the timing of intent and the timing of action.. ASSC. London, Ontario, Canada.
  More info

  Wall, T.A., Wei, X., & Isham, E.A. (2019). Dissociating the timing of intent and the timing of action. The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, London, Ontario, Canada.
• Isham, E. A., & Geng, J. (2013, May). Visual fixation parameters predict decisional outcomes better than preference.. Vision Sciences Society. Naples, FL.
• Isham, E. A., Trice, H., Emerzian, B., & Prinzmetal, W. (2013, November). Time Flies When You Spatially Adapt to the Right. Psychonomic Society.
• Isham, E. A., Gwinn, R., & Geng, J. (2013, November). The relationship between aesthetic choice, values and looking time during a visual aesthetic decision task. Perception, Attention and Memory meeting. Minneapolis, MN.
• Isham, E. A., & Banks, W. (2011, November). Saving free will from science.. Psychonomic Society.
• Isham, E. A., & Disbrow, E. (2011, November). Neuropathology of Task Switching in Parkinson’s Disease.. SfN. Washington D.C..
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., & Geng, J. (2011, August). Representational Momentum Influences the Perceived Time of Action.. Bay Area Vision Research Day. Berkeley, CA.
• Isham, E. A., Banks, W., & Geng, J. (2011, November). Perceptual biases in reading the analog clock influence the perceived time of action: Free will may not be illusory after all.. Object, Perception, Attention and Memory,. Seattle, WA.
• Mineyev, S., Isham, E. A., & Ekstrom, A. (2011, April). Binding processes in episodic memory.. Poster session presented at the annual meeting for undergraduate research. Davis, CA..
• Isham, E. A., & Geng, J. (2010, November). Construction of Action Time.. Poster session presented at the annual meeting for the annual meeting for Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, MO.. St Louis, MO.
• Isham, E. A., Copara, M., DiQuattro, N., Patel, D., Mineyev, S., Aarons, B., Geng, J., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2010, November). Independent and conjunctive processing of spatial and temporal information in episodic memory.. SfN. San Diego, CA.
• Isham, E. A., & Banks, W. (2009, November). What is the moment of decision in the Libet paradigm.. Psychonomic Society. Boston, MA.
• Banks, W., Isham, E. A., Hokanson, K., & Macellaio, M. (2008, May). Moment of decision in Libet free will paradigm is retrospectively inferred.. Association for Psychological Science. Chicago, Il..
• Banks, W., Isham, E. A., Hokanson, K., & Marcellaio, M. (2008, April). We infer rather than perceive the moment of decision to act in Libet’s measurement.. Toward a Science of Consciousness. Tucson, Az..
• Isham, E. A., & Banks, W. (2008, May). Halo effect and contrast effect in aesthetic evaluation of visual art.. Association for Psychological Science. Chicago, Il..
• Isham, E. A., & Banks, W. (2007, June). Reverse aesthetic preference for artworks with different fame status.. Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. Las Vegas, NV.
• Isham, E. A., Baker, C., Thorp, C., Banks, W., & Steinmetz, P. (2006, October). Temporal dependence of single unit responses in human subjects during object categorization.. SfN. Atlanta, GA.

Others

• Balci, F., Karsilar, H., Freestone, D., Vatakis, A., & Isham, E. A. (2021, March). Timing Database.
  More info

  https://osf.io/vrwjz/The Timing Database provides a platform where data from interval timing tasks can be found with a common format in one place.
• Isham, E. A., Ekstrom, A. D., & Frassinetti, F. (2019, November). Time and Space symposium.
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  Symposium organizer/chairSpeakers include:Arne EkstromFrancesca Frassinetti