Department of Psychology /
Institute for Intelligent Systems
University of Memphis
Psychology Building
Memphis, TN 38112
Ph.D. (expected), Experimental Psychology (Cognitive Emphasis), University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
Dissertation Topic: Uncovering the Hidden Cognitive Processes and Underlying Dynamics of Deception
Major Area Paper Topic: A Dynamical Systems Approach to Psycholinguistics
M.S., Experimental Psychology (Cognitive Science Emphasis), University of Memphis, Memphis, TN August, 2007
B.A., Psychology
(Psycholinguistic Emphasis), University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA
March, 2005
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2006-2008
Outstanding Student Paper Award, Society for Text and Discourse, 2008
Roland L. Frye Achievement Award for Outstanding Achievement in Experimental Psychology Research, University of Memphis, Department of Psychology, 2007-2008 (One graduate student selected each year by faculty)
Program Directors Award for Excellence, University of Memphis, Department of Psychology, Graduate 2005-2006 (One graduate student selected each year by faculty)
Advanced Opportunity Fellowship for Minority Students, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005 (Declined)
Outstanding Student for the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of California, Riverside, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, 2003-2004 (One graduating student is selected each year by faculty of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences)
Academic Program Excellence Award for Psychology, University of California, Riverside, Department of Psychology, 2003-2004 (One graduating student is selected each year by faculty of the Psychology Department)
Graduate Student Researcher, Cognitive Science and
Educational Practices Lab, University of Memphis – Institute for
Intelligent Systems (August 2005 – Present)
Supervisor: Dr. Danielle McNamara
Projects:
Applying natural language processing to language comprehension
Applying natural language processing
to detecting deception
Intelligent
tutoring systems in educational practices
Graduate Student Researcher, Cognition and Integrated Action
Lab, University of Memphis (December 2006 – Present)
Supervisor: Dr. Rick Dale
Projects:
Using action dynamics to explore language learning
Using action dynamics to explore deceptive behavior
Coordination in human interaction
Complex dynamical systems in psychological research
Undergraduate Student Researcher, Psycholinguistics and
Computational Cognition Lab, University of California, Riverside (July 2003
– July 2005)
Supervisor: Dr. Curt Burgess
Project:
High-dimensional semantic models
Duran, N. D. & McCarthy, P. M. (in review). Using
statistically improbable features to reveal the thematic content of deception. Discourse Processes.
Dale, R., Duran, N. D., & Morehead, J. R. (in review). Manual prediction in a brief serial reaction-time task. Psychological Research.
Dale, R. & Duran, N. D. (in review). Sentential negation creates shifts in cognitive dynamics. Cognitive Science.
Duran,
N. D., Dale, R., &
McNamara, D. S. (in press). The action dynamics of overcoming the truth. Psychonomic
Bulletin and Review.
Bellissens, C., Jeuniaux, P., Duran, N. D., McNamara, D. S. (2010). A text relatedness and dependency computational model: Using Latent Semantic Analysis and Coh-Metrix to predict self-explanation quality. Studia Informatica Universalis, 8, 85-125.View
McCarthy, P. M., Hall, C., Duran N. D., Doiuchi, M., Duncan, B., Fujiwara, Y., & McNamara, D. S., (in
press). A computational analysis of journal abstracts written by Japanese,
American, and British scientists. The ESPecialist.
Dale, R., Roche, J., & Duran, N. D. (2008). Language is complex. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 8, 351-362. [invited article].View
McCarthy, P. M., Renner, A. M. Duncan, M. G., Duran, N. D., Lightman, E. J., & McNamara. D. S. (2008). Identifying topic sentencehood. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 647-664.View
Duran, N. D. & Dale, R. (2009). Anticipatory arm placement in the statistical
learning of position sequences. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of
the Cognitive Science Society. Amsterdam, Netherlands:
Cognitive Science Society.
Duran, N.D., Crossley, S., Hall, C., McCarthy, P., & McNamara, D. S. (2009). Expanding a catalogue of deceptive linguistic features with NLP technologies. In the Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society, Sanibel Island, FL.View
Duran, N. D., Bellissens, C., Taylor, R. S., & McNamara, D. S. (2007).
Quantifying text difficulty with automated indices of cohesion and semantics.
In D. S. McNamara and G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th annual
conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 233-238). Austin,
TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Bellissens, C., Jeuniaux, P., Duran, N. D., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). Towards a textual cohesion model that predicts self-explanation inference generation as a function of text structure and readersÕ knowledge. In D. S. McNamara and G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 815-820). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.View
Willits, J. A., DÕMello, S. K., Duran, N. D., & Olney, A. (2007). Distributional statistics and thematic role relationships. In D. S. McNamara and G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 707-712). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.View
Duran, N. D., McCarthy, P. M., Graesser, A. C., & McNamara, D. S. (2006). Using Coh-Metrix temporal indices to predict psychological measures of time. In R. Sun & N. Miyake (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 190-195). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.View
Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Does the arm know when youÕre lying? [Abstract]. In the Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (p. 22). Austin, TX: Psychonomic Society Publications.
Duran, N. D., & Dale, R. (2008). Dynamic lexical processing evident in Wiimote trajectories [Abstract]. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (p. 1281). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Duran, N. D., & Burgess, C. (2004).
Distinguishing pour, load, and fill verbs in high-dimensional memory space [Abstract]. In
the Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic
Society (p. 35). Austin,
TX: Psychonomic Society Publications.
Duran, N. D. & Dale, R. (2009).
Anticipatory arm placement in the statistical learning of position sequences. Poster
presented at the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Amsterdam, Netherlands:
Cognitive Science Society.
Duran, N. D., Hall, C., &
McCarthy, P. M. (2009). Using statistically improbable n-gram features to
reveal the thematic content of deception. Paper presented at the 39th
Annual Meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology, Boston, MA
Duran, N. D., Hall, C., McCarthy, P. M.,
& McNamara, D. S. (2009). The linguistic correlates of conversational
deception: Comparing natural language processing technologies. Paper
presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the International Florida Artificial
Intelligence Research Society, Sanibel
Island, FL.
Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & McNamara (2008). The continuous dynamics of false responding. Paper presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology, Chicago, IL.
Duran, N. D., & Dale, R. (2008). Dynamic lexical processing evident in Wiimote trajectories. Poster presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Washington, D. C.
Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Automated detection of coordination between child and caregivers using natural language processing. Paper presented at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse, Memphis, TN. [Recipient of the Outstanding Student Paper Award]
Duran, N. D., Bellissens, C., Taylor, R. S., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). Quantifying text difficulty with automated indices of cohesion and semantics. Paper presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Nashville, TN.
Duran, N. D., McCarthy, P.M., Bellissens, C., McNamara, D. (2007). What makes a text difficult? Paper presented at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse, Glasgow, Scotland.
Duran, N. D., & Lightman, E. (2006).
Are gender differences between Venusians and
Martians out of this world?: A computational approach for assessing linguistic
style. Paper presented at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL
LXXIII), Auburn, AL.
Duran, N. D., McCarthy, P. M., Graesser, A. C., & McNamara, D. S. (2006). Using Coh-Metrix temporal indices to predict psychological measures of time. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Duran, N. D., & McNamara, D. S.
(2006). ItÕs about time: Discriminating differences in temporality between
genres. Poster presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text
and Discourse,
Minneapolis, MN.
Duran, N., & Burgess, C. (2004).
Distinguishing pour, load, and fill verbs in high-dimensional memory
space. Poster presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic
Society, Minneapolis,
MN.
Duran, N., Burgess, C., &
Hatzopoulos, A. (2004). Assessing HALÕs vocabulary intelligence. Paper
presented at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology, Minneapolis, MN.
Duran, N. (2004). Mimicking human verbal
intelligence: HAL and the Nelson-Denny vocabulary test. Paper presented at
the 13th Annual UCLA Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Los Angeles, CA.
Duran, N. (2004). An alternative to
innateness: Distinguishing pour and load verbs in high-dimensional memory
space. Paper presented at the 13th Annual UCLA Undergraduate Psychology
Conference, Los Angeles,
CA.
Duran, N. (2004). Inhibitions to the
social self: Perceptions of trustworthiness and social phobia. Poster
presented at the 13th Annual UCLA Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Los Angeles, CA.
Dale, R. & Duran, N. D. (2009). Dynamical characterization of semantic coupling in child-caregiver interaction. Paper presented at the 15th International Conference on Perception and Action, Minneapolis, MN.
Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Does the arm know when youÕre lying? Paper presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL.
Hu, X.,
Cai, Z., Duran, N. D., &
Olney, A. (November, 2006).
Theoretical framework of semantic spaces: More applications. Paper
presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse, Houston, Texas.
McCarthy, P., Renner, A., Duncan, M., Duran, N. D., & McNamara, D.S. (November, 2006). Computationally identifying topic sentences: Comparing the Co-Reference Model to an Individual Features Model. Paper presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse, Houston, Texas.
OÕReilly, T., Taylor, R. S., Duran, N.
D., McNamara, D.S.
(2006). Beyond the science domain: The transfer of reading strategies to
non-expository texts. Paper presented at the 16th Annual Meeting
of the Society for Text and Discourse,
Minneapolis, MN
Local Presentations
Duran, N. D. (2007, April).
Using distributional statistics: Event-based
expectancy in syntactic processing. Presentation at the Experimental
Psychology Brown Bag, Memphis,
Tennessee.
Lightman, E., & Duran, N. D. (2006, April). Predicting variations in gendered speech. Poster
presented at the University of Memphis Diversity Conference, Memphis, TN.
Duran, N. D. (2006, February). Evaluating temporal coherence. Presentation
at the Experimental Psychology Brown Bag, Memphis, Tennessee.
Teaching
Co-Instructor for "Learning and Cognitive Processes" (Undergraduate Honors), Spring 2010.
Teaching Assistant for
ÒNonlinear Methods for Psychological ScienceÓ, American Psychological
Association (APA) Advanced Training Institute, University of Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, OH (June 8th-12th, 2009)
Guest Lecturer in English Department graduate level courses: Introduction to Syntax, Corpus Analysis
President,
Graduate Student Coordinating Committee, 2009-2010 (Student Advocacy Group for
150+ Psychology Graduate Students at the University of Memphis) http://sites.google.com/site/gsccmemphis/
Interim President, Institute for Intelligent Systems Student Organization, 2009-2010 http://sites.google.com/site/iissomemphis2/
Chair: Cognition and Artificial Intelligence. Special Track for the Florida Artificial Intelligence Society (FLAIRS) Conference, 2010 http://academic.nickduran.com/FLAIRS_C&AI.html
Experimental Program
Representative, Graduate Student Coordinating
Committee, 2006-2007
President,
University of California-Riverside Habitat for Humanity, 2003-2005
Reviewer
Discourse Processes
Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence
Annual Meeting of the Florida Intelligence Research Society
European Cognitive Science Conference
Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse
Cognitive Science Society
Society for Text and Discourse
Society for Computers in Psychology
American Psychological Association
ÒNonlinear Methods for Psychological ScienceÓ, American Psychological Association (APA) Advanced Training Institute, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (June 9th-13th, 2008).
Dynamical and Nonlinear Analysis of Communication and Problem Solving Training Seminar, University of Radbaud, Nijmegen, Netherlands (January 12th-14th, 2008).
Formal Languages: Python, R, Flash (ActionScript), some Awk
Math Packages: MATLAB, R, SPSS, |Stat, some SAS, some Weka
Operating Systems: Mac, Unix, Windows