People
Principal Investigator | Brennan R. Payne, PhD | ✉| CV | Psych@Utah | Neuro@Utah
Brennan directs the Language and Memory Aging Laboratory (LaMA Lab). He is an Associate Professor in the Cognition and Neural Science Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. He holds additional faculty appointments with the Neuroscience Program, the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the Utah Center on Aging. Brennan received his M.S. (2012) and Ph.D (2014) from the University of Illinois. From 2014-2017, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Cognition and Brain Lab at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. His research is focused on understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language comprehension and verbal memory functioning across the adult lifespan. He adopts an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach to this work, including the use of experimental, correlational, and longitudinal approaches with measures of brain activity (e.g., event-related brain potentials, transcranial magnetic stimulation), human performance (eye-tracking, reaction time, memory performance), and physiology (e.g., pupillary responses).
Brennan has received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science (2017), the Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 3: Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science; 2017), the Early Career Research Award from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (2021), the Superior Researcher Award from the University of Utah's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (2023) and the Irwin Altman Award for Outstanding Psychology Faculty from the University of Utah's Department of Psychology (2025). His work has been generously funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, Google, Sorensen, the Utah Center on Aging, the Psychonomic Society, and the University of Utah's Office of the Vice President of Research.
Brennan directs the Language and Memory Aging Laboratory (LaMA Lab). He is an Associate Professor in the Cognition and Neural Science Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. He holds additional faculty appointments with the Neuroscience Program, the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the Utah Center on Aging. Brennan received his M.S. (2012) and Ph.D (2014) from the University of Illinois. From 2014-2017, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Cognition and Brain Lab at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. His research is focused on understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language comprehension and verbal memory functioning across the adult lifespan. He adopts an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach to this work, including the use of experimental, correlational, and longitudinal approaches with measures of brain activity (e.g., event-related brain potentials, transcranial magnetic stimulation), human performance (eye-tracking, reaction time, memory performance), and physiology (e.g., pupillary responses).
Brennan has received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science (2017), the Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 3: Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science; 2017), the Early Career Research Award from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (2021), the Superior Researcher Award from the University of Utah's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (2023) and the Irwin Altman Award for Outstanding Psychology Faculty from the University of Utah's Department of Psychology (2025). His work has been generously funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, Google, Sorensen, the Utah Center on Aging, the Psychonomic Society, and the University of Utah's Office of the Vice President of Research.
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Jack Silcox, Ph.D | CV | Jack is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Language and Memory Aging Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. (2023) and M.S. (2020) in Cognition and Neural Science at the University of Utah, his M.S. in Applied Statistics from Loyola University Chicago (2018) and his B.S. in Neuroscience from Brigham Young University (2016). Dr. Silcox was the recipient of the University of Utah's inaugural "Excellence in Innovation Award" 2023 for his work in the LaMA lab on the cognitive and neural bases of speech comprehension in age-related sensorineural hearing loss. Jack's most recent research focuses on how speech comprehension changes in perceptually challenging scenarios (e.g., when listening to speech with background noise or while driving a car). His research employs techniques including EEG, pupillometry, and TMS.
Graduate Students
Jack Silcox, Ph.D | CV | Jack is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Language and Memory Aging Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. (2023) and M.S. (2020) in Cognition and Neural Science at the University of Utah, his M.S. in Applied Statistics from Loyola University Chicago (2018) and his B.S. in Neuroscience from Brigham Young University (2016). Dr. Silcox was the recipient of the University of Utah's inaugural "Excellence in Innovation Award" 2023 for his work in the LaMA lab on the cognitive and neural bases of speech comprehension in age-related sensorineural hearing loss. Jack's most recent research focuses on how speech comprehension changes in perceptually challenging scenarios (e.g., when listening to speech with background noise or while driving a car). His research employs techniques including EEG, pupillometry, and TMS.
Graduate Students
Allyson Copeland, M.S. | Allyson is a PhD candidate in the Cognition and Neural Science Program at the University of Utah and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She received her M.S. in Cognition and Neural Science in 2024, her B.S. in Psychological Science (with a cognitive concentration) and her B.A. in Philosophy from Western Kentucky University in 2021. Her current research focuses on co-registration of eye movements with cognitive event-related brain potentials in natural reading.
Sarah Woods, M.S. | Sarah is a PhD student in the Cognition and Neural Science Program at the University of Utah, an NIH/NIDCD Diversity Scholar, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She received her M.S. in Cognition and Neural Science in 2024, and her B.S. in Psychology and her B.A. in French from Southwestern University in 2021. Sarah's current research focuses on aperiodic neural activity as a measure of listening effort in older adults with hearing loss.
Caroline Armknecht, B.S., B.A. | Caroline is a PhD student in the Clinical Psychology Program specializing in Neuropsychology at the University of Utah. She received her B.S. in Neuroscience and her B.A in English at Muhlenberg College in 2022. Her research focuses on the intersection of pupillometry, electrophysiological markers, and workload manipulations in conjunction with neuropsychological assessment to inform clinical judgements. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary project examining cognitive event-related brain potentials in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.
Juliana Conway, B.A. | Juliana is a PhD student in the Cognition and Neural Science Program at the University of Utah. Juliana completed her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Communicative Sciences and Deaf Studies from California State University Fresno in 2025. Her current work focuses on developing methods to study the electrophysiological mechanisms of multisensory integration during text-captioned speech processing.
Juliana Conway, B.A. | Juliana is a PhD student in the Cognition and Neural Science Program at the University of Utah. Juliana completed her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Communicative Sciences and Deaf Studies from California State University Fresno in 2025. Her current work focuses on developing methods to study the electrophysiological mechanisms of multisensory integration during text-captioned speech processing.
Lab Manager
Prospective Students, Research Assistants, and Postdocs
Interested in joining the lab? Contact Brennan Payne for information about opportunities, including:
1. Undergraduate research assistant, Human Factors Certificate, or Honors/UROP Student
2. PhD student in the Cognition and Neural Sciences PhD program
3. Postdoctoral research associate
Collaborators
Kara Federmeier, University of Illinois
Elizabeth A.L. Stine-Morrow, University of Illinois
Patrick Hill, Washington University in St. Louis
Elizabeth Schotter, University of South Florida
Brian Mickey, University of Utah
Sarah Hargus Ferguson, University of Utah
Nate Ward, Tufts University
Erika Hussey, US Army Natick Soldier Systems
Monika Lohani, University of Utah
- Karen Bennett, B.S. | Karen received her B.S. in Psychology in 2021 from the University of Utah. She currently is project manager for our NIDCD-funded project on listening effort and sensorineural hearing loss.
- McKenzie Price | Shu Yang | Sarah Hancock | Nate Wright | Cadon Sagendorf
- PhD/AuD students: Lydia Kallhoff, PhD (Assistant Professor (TT), Rocky Mountain University) | Clara Lopes, PhD | Jack Silcox, PhD (Postdoc, University of Utah) | Sara LoTemplio, PhD (Assistant Professor (TT), Colorado State University) | Mark Rasmussen, AuD (Assistant Professor, University of Utah) | Brittany Carpenter, AuD (Audiologist, Kaiser Permanente Hearing Center) | Nicole Parente, AuD (Audiologist, VA Puget Sound Health Care) | Ryan Murdock (Machine Learning Engineer, Adobe)
- Undergraduate Researchers (lab managers, honors students, UROP): Hannah Crandell (PhD student, UCF), Ali Bergmark (PhD student, UConn) | Hope Caviness (MS student, ASU) | Avery Wall (Data Scientist, Instructure) | Irene Kim (PhD student, Yonsei University).
Prospective Students, Research Assistants, and Postdocs
Interested in joining the lab? Contact Brennan Payne for information about opportunities, including:
1. Undergraduate research assistant, Human Factors Certificate, or Honors/UROP Student
2. PhD student in the Cognition and Neural Sciences PhD program
3. Postdoctoral research associate
Collaborators
Kara Federmeier, University of Illinois
Elizabeth A.L. Stine-Morrow, University of Illinois
Patrick Hill, Washington University in St. Louis
Elizabeth Schotter, University of South Florida
Brian Mickey, University of Utah
Sarah Hargus Ferguson, University of Utah
Nate Ward, Tufts University
Erika Hussey, US Army Natick Soldier Systems
Monika Lohani, University of Utah