About

Janice Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on understanding how the brain constructs and retrieves memories of complex real-world episodes. She employs realistic stimuli such as movies and narratives, along with behaviors like spoken recall, which contain rich natural semantics and unfold continuously across multiple timescales. Using temporal and spatial pattern analysis methods combined with functional brain imaging data, her work investigates how mnemonic and sensory systems dynamically operate together to create the present moment. Chen's research addresses the convergence of sensory input from the outside world and elements from past experiences, exploring how memories triggered by sensory stimuli influence ongoing perception and behavior across multiple timescales, from moments to days prior. She emphasizes the importance of studying real memory with real stimuli, arguing that traditional experimental approaches that trade realism for control may overlook the richness and complexity inherent in naturalistic memory processes.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Natural Language Processing
• Political Science
• Cognitive psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Evolutionary biology
• Biology
• Social psychology
• Philosophy
• World Wide Web
• Law

Selected publications

• Narratives Have a Persisting Influence on the Tempo of the Brain

  2026-05-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An fMRI dataset of verbalized spontaneous thought with annotated transcripts and self-report trait measures

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-05-12

  articleOpen access

  Spontaneous thought is pervasive in everyday human cognition, yet datasets capturing its neural dynamics under minimally interrupted conditions remain limited. The current dataset was acquired from a think-aloud functional MRI experiment in which 118 participants continuously verbalized their spontaneous thoughts during 10-minute scanning sessions. The raw MRI data and verbal transcripts with sentence-level timestamps were previously released and analyzed in our prior study examining neural activity associated with thought transitions. Building on that release, we additionally provide preprocessed MRI data, speech transcriptions with word-level timestamps aligned to image acquisition, large language model-generated ratings of transcribed thoughts across emotional and sensory dimensions, and self-report survey measures assessing personality, mental health, and cognitive abilities. Validation analyses demonstrated activation in expected cortical regions associated with speech production and sensory content identified from transcript annotations, agreement between language model and human ratings, and adequate internal consistency of survey measures, supporting the dataset's overall quality. This dataset enables reuse for investigations of spontaneous thought, speech generation, and individual differences using naturalistic functional MRI data.

  PublisherDOI

• Think aloud behavioral data

  Open MIND · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Music-evoked reactivation during continuous perception is associated with enhanced subsequent recall of naturalistic events

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-07-06

  preprintOpen access

  Music is a potent cue for recalling personal experiences, yet the neural basis of music-evoked memory remains elusive. We address this question by using the full-length film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to examine how repeated musical themes reactivate previously encoded events in cortex and shape next-day recall. Participants in an fMRI study viewed either the original film (with repeated musical themes) or a no-music version. By comparing neural activity patterns between these groups, we found that music-evoked reactivation of neural patterns linked to earlier scenes in the default mode network was associated with improved subsequent recall. This relationship was specific to the music condition and persisted when we controlled for a proxy measure of initial encoding strength (spatial intersubject correlation), suggesting that music-evoked reactivation may play a role in making event memories stick that is distinct from what happens at initial encoding.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Examining effects of specific feedback on the acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken nasal consonants

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2025-10-01

  article

  Clear speech is a speaking style in which speakers modify their speech—typically by slowing down, increasing intensity, and producing more precise articulation—to enhance intelligibility. This study aims to extend prior findings by examining how feedback-driven adaptations influence the production of nasal consonants in clear speech. Participants completed a faux speech recognition software training task, (Maniwa et al., 2009) producing words containing nasal consonants in word-initial and word-final positions within the carrier phrase, “I say a ___ again.” Speakers first used their typical speech and then received one of three types of scripted feedback. General feedback (“???”) was intended to prompt broad clarification; specific feedback (“Did you say bet?”) simulated a targeted misperception; and correct feedback (/met/ → /met/) confirmed the target word. Finally, participants produced the target word again to clarify their production. We hypothesize that feedback will elicit hyper-articulation of nasal consonants and a reduction in co-articulatory nasalization (Zellou & Scarborough, 2012). We expect distinct acoustic patterns across feedback conditions that differ by number and type of feature contrasts. Specifically, we predict greater hyper-articulation following feedback with minimal contrasts to the target word (/m/ → /b/) compared to those involving maximal contrasts (/m/ → /d/).

  PublisherDOI

• A neural network with key-value episodic memory retrieves and organizes memories based on causal event structures

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-09-05 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Humans reflect on memories to make sense of ongoing events. Past work has shown that people retrieve causally related memories during comprehension, but the mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Here, we used a recurrent neural network augmented with a key-value episodic memory buffer and trained it to predict upcoming scenes while watching a television episode. At each time step, the model transformed the current scene into a value representing memory content and a key representing memory address, both stored as episodic memory. The model retrieved selective past values by applying self-attention over stored keys and integrated these memories with the current scene representation to generate predictions. The model retrieved memories similar to those retrieved by human participants watching the same episode during fMRI. Importantly, this similarity disappeared when causal relationships between events were controlled for. The model also represented causally related events with similar patterns, similar to how the human brain represents these events. These findings suggest that using two distinct memory representations allows the model to retrieve memories and organize events based on causal relationships, beyond semantic or perceptual similarities. Together, this work proposes a key-value episodic memory system as a candidate computational mechanism for how humans retrieve causally related memories to comprehend naturalistic events.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Examining the role of interaction in shaping speech intelligibility in dysarthric speech

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2025-10-01

  article

  How speakers and listeners process speech has been extensively studied using carefully controlled experimental paradigms in which there is an implied, but not actual, communication. This provides inadequate information on how spoken language use may vary as a function of different communicative situations. To address this gap, the current study uses a collaborative word matching paradigm to examine how interlocutors adapt their speech processing in actual communicative situations. Specifically, individuals with dysarthria secondary to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (PALS) collaborate with a naïve communication partners in a word matching task in which they are instructed to speak naturally or to speak clearly (clear speech). PALS also produce speech without the presence of an interlocutor both in their natural style and using clear speech. Stimuli consist of minimal sets of words differing segments embedded within a carrier phrase. We assess how intelligibility of tokens produced in the interactive tasks compare to those produced in non-interactive situations. Results will show whether and how PALS’ intelligibility is shaped by task demands. More broadly, this study demonstrates both the flexibility of speech production in this population and the importance of including communicative interaction in models of spoken language use.

  PublisherDOI

• Neural dynamics of spontaneous memory recall and future thinking in the continuous flow of thoughts

  Nature Communications · 2025-07-11 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Humans constantly recall past experiences and anticipate future events, generating a continuous flow of thoughts. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the natural transitions and trajectories of thoughts during spontaneous memory recall and future thinking remain underexplored. To address this gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study using a think-aloud paradigm, where participants verbalize their uninterrupted stream of thoughts during rest. We found that transitions between thoughts, particularly those involving significant shifts in semantic content, activate the brain's default and control networks. These neural responses to internally generated thought boundaries produce activation patterns resembling those triggered by external event boundaries. Moreover, interactions within and between these networks shape the overall semantic structure of thought trajectories. Specifically, stronger functional connectivity within the medial temporal subsystem of the default network predicts greater variability in thoughts, while stronger connectivity between the control and core default networks is associated with reduced variability. Together, our findings highlight how the default and control networks guide the dynamic transitions and structure of naturally arising memory and future thinking.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Neural and behavioral reinstatement jointly reflect retrieval of narrative events

  Nature Communications · 2025-08-23 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  When recalling past events, patterns of gaze position and neural activity resemble those observed during the original experience. We hypothesized that these two phenomena, known as gaze reinstatement and neural reactivation, are linked through a common process that underlies the reinstatement of past experiences during memory retrieval. Here, we tested this proposal based on the viewing and recall of a narrative movie, which we assessed through functional magnetic resonance imaging, deep learning-based gaze prediction, and language modeling of spoken recall. In line with key predictions, gaze behavior adhered to the same principles as neural activity; it was event-specific, robust across individuals, and generalized across viewing and recall. Additionally, gaze-dependent brain activity overlapped substantially across tasks. Collectively, these results suggest that retrieval engages mechanisms similar to those that direct our eyes during natural vision, reflecting common constraints within the functional organization of the nervous system. Moreover, they highlight the importance of considering behavioral and neural reinstatement together in our understanding of remembering. When people recall a movie, their eye movements and brain activity resemble those observed during the viewing. These behavioral and neural reactivations are linked through a common process, likely reflecting the specific internal experiences that emerge in an instance of recall.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Agency personalizes episodic memories

  PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2024-12-05

  preprintOpen access

  Humans are agents: our choices actively shape the trajectory of events in our lives. These choices rely on personal knowledge and preferences, but what are the consequences for later memory? We studied how people’s memory for a naturalistic sequence of events is altered when their choices control the future. Participants read “choose-your-own-adventure” stories with full, partial, or no control over future events. In all conditions, events which were causally or semantically central to the story were better recalled. However, even when all participants read the exact same events, those with full control recalled more idiosyncratic combinations of events. Moreover, their memories were less well predicted by generic sentence embeddings, suggesting a shift away from normative semantic space. Agency also increased the likelihood of jointly remembering or forgetting consecutive events. These results reveal that agency fundamentally reshapes memory organization, increasing the influence of idiosyncratic personal factors and strengthening local temporal integration.

  Publisher

Recent grants

• Effects of experience on shared information across brains: Insights from blindness

  NSF · $165k · 2019–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Uri Hasson

  Neuroscience Institute

  46 shared

• Mariam Aly

  Columbia University

  20 shared

• Nicholas B. Turk‐Browne

  Yale University

  20 shared

• Kenneth A. Norman

  Princeton University

  20 shared

• Christopher J. Honey

  Johns Hopkins University

  15 shared

• Hongmi Lee

  14 shared

• Christopher Baldassano

  14 shared

• Erez Simony

  Holon Institute of Technology

  12 shared

Labs

• Janice Chen LabPI