Yetta Wong received her B.S.Sc in Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include the development of perceptual expertise in various domains, such as music reading, Chinese and English word recognition, face recognition and auditory pitch perception. Her research techniques include behavioral measurements, electroencephalograph (EEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye-tracking. Please refer to her lab website https://sites.google.com/view/yettawong/home

The Learning and Perception (LAP) Lab believes that understanding science of learning can bring a huge impact on education. We study the difference between experts and novices, and investigate methods for enhancing learning efficiency. By preparing and enhancing our perceptual systems, students with various learning needs can benefit a lot more from their educational experience. We aim to generate insights into learning and translate them in real-world educational practice. Our research focuses on understanding human learning and expertise development, such as music reading, Chinese and English word recognition, face recognition, auditory pitch perception, absolute pitch and music sight-reading. Our research techniques include behavioral measurement, EEG, fMRI and eye-tracking. Learn more about our work here.

Ongoing research:
● Learning to read musical notation and sight-read
● Development of absolute pitch
● Visual word recognition & dyslexia

1. Wong, Y. K., & A. C.-N. Wong (2016). Music-reading training alleviates crowding with musical notation. Journal of Vision, 16(8):15, 1-9.
2. Wong, Y. K., Peng, C., Fratus, K. N., Woodman, G. F., & Gauthier, I. (2014). Perceptual expertise and top-down expectation of musical notation engages the primary visual cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(8), 1629-1643.
3. Wong, Y. K. & Wong, A. C.-N. (2014). Absolute pitch: Its prevalence among musicians and dependence on the testing context. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(2), 534-542.
4. Wong, Y. K., Folstein, J. R., & Gauthier, I. (2012). The nature of experience determines object representations in the visual system. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(4), 682-698, doi: 10.1037/a0027822.
5. Wong, Y. K., Folstein, J. R., & Gauthier, I. (2011). Task-irrelevant perceptual expertise. Journal of Vision, 11(14):3, 1-15.
6. Wong, Y. K., & Gauthier, I. (2010). A multimodal neural network recruited by expertise with musical notation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(4), 695-713.

For a full list of publication, please refer to her lab website