Psychological Sciences Faculty and Staff

Research Interests

I study the effects of aging and stroke damage on the brain, especially with respect to memory and attention. The large numbers of people who will have dementing disorders, stroke, and traumatic damage to the brain lead to an imperative to understand how to protect the brain from these forms of damage and how to mitigate their effects.

In addition, I am interested in the brain basis of perception, especially the neuroscience of the chemical senses- taste and olfaction. The chemical senses are the oldest in evolutionary terms and are tightly linked to the older, limbic parts of the brain in ways that other senses are not. This means that the chemical senses are closely related to our emotions and our memories.

A new area of interest is how a physical structure of space (a building, park, etc.) influences behavior, cognitions and emotion. This area is referred to as Environmental Psychology.

 Courses Taught

Introductory Psychology (honors and non-honors)

Sensation and Perception

Physiological Psychology

Introduction to Neurobiology

Psychology and Medicine

Psychopharmacology: Drugs and Behavior

Evolutionary Psychology

Biopsychology

Selected Publications

Fridriksson, J., Hillis, A., Rorden, C., Baylis, G.C., Hirth, V., Baylis, L.L, and Bonilha, L. Cortical gray and white matter density associated with naming in older adults. (Under Review)

Rorden, C., Jelsone, L., Simon-Dack, S., Baylis, L.L. and Baylis, G.C. (2009).

Visual Extinction: The effect of temporal and spatial bias. Neuropsychologia, 47, 321-329.

Baylis, G.C., Baylis, L.L., and Gore, C.J. (2004). Visual neglect can be object-based or scene-based, depending on task representation. Cortex, 40, 237-246.

Baylis, G.C., Simon, S.L., Baylis, L.L., Rorden, C. (2002). Visual extinction with double simultaneous stimulation: what is simultaneous? Neuropsychologia, 40, 1027-1034.

Baylis, G.C and Baylis, L.L.  (2001). Visually misguided reaching in Balint's Syndrome. Neuropsychologia, 39, 865-875.

Baylis, G.C. and Baylis, L.L. (1997). Deficit in figure-ground segregation following closed head injury. Neuropsychologia, 35, 1133-1138.

Baylis, L. L., Rolls, E. T. and Baylis, G. C. (1995). Afferent connections of the caudolateral orbitofrontal cortex taste area of the primate.  Neuroscience, 64, 801-812 .

Baylis, G.C., Driver, J., Baylis, L.L. and Rafal, R.  (1994). Reading letters and words in a patient with Balint's Syndrome.  Neuropsychologia , 10, 1273-1286.

Rolls, E. T. and Baylis, L. L.  (1994).  Gustatory, olfactory and visual convergence within the primate orbitofrontal cortex.  Journal of Neuroscience, 14, 5437-5452.

Baylis, L. L. and Gaffan, D.  (1991).  Amygdalectomy and ventromedial prefrontal ablation produce similar deficits in food choice and in simple object discrimination learning for an unseen reward.  Experimental Brain Research, 86:  617-622.

Baylis, L.L. and Rolls, E.T.  (1991).  Responses of neurons in the primate taste cortex to glutamate.  Physiology and Behavior, 49:  973-979.