About

Royston Edwin Carter is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Engineering Graduate and Professional Programs at Duke University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom in 1984. His research contributions include studies on cellular trafficking, endocytosis, and receptor interactions, with publications focusing on topics such as clathrin adaptor complexes, epidermal growth factor receptor endocytosis, and protein structure-function relationships. His work has involved advanced microscopy techniques like fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and has contributed to the understanding of cellular mechanisms related to receptor trafficking and endocytosis.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Audiology
• Civil engineering
• Literature
• Philosophy
• Reliability engineering
• Cognitive psychology
• Mining engineering
• Medicine
• Art history
• History
• Geology
• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Engineering
• Art
• Linguistics
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• Executive function and underlying brain network distinctions for callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in adolescents

  Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging · 2025-03-04

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• A Distinct Role for Perceived Realism in Juror Decision Making

  2025-11-06

  articleOpen access

  Jurors evaluate evidence in a case based on their common sense and experience, implicating some form of memory. Cognitive psychologists traditionally study explicit memory in episodic and semantic forms. However, juror decision making researchers emphasize narrative models in which jurors evaluate how realistic the proposed story is compared to real world events. To assess how perceived realism and explicit recall affect juror decisions, jury-eligible subjects (N = 83) read mock criminal cases, rating the strength of each case. Participants also reported their ability to recall a similar case (autobiographical recall), their knowledge of similar cases (factual recall), and the perceived realism of the case. Perceived realism was the most influential component of mock-juror decisions. Additional analyses identified two contributions of perceived realism: a common factor combining realism with memory recall and an independent factor. These findings support the hypothesis that complex decisions rely on perceived realism based on memory retrieval.

  PublisherDOI

• A Distinct Role for Perceived Realism in Juror Decision Making

  2025-02-21

  preprintOpen access

  The decision-making process of jurors is complex, and jurors likely retrieve personal information and knowledge to make sense of the case. We test the hypothesis that perceived realism underpins case strength decisions, where realism reflects a good match between the case and retrieved information. To assess how realism affects juror decisions, jury-eligible subjects (N = 83) read mock criminal cases, rating the strength of each case. Participants also reported their ability to recall a similar case (autobiographical recall), their knowledge of similar cases (factual recall), and the perceived realism of the case. Perceived realism was the most influential component of mock-juror decisions. Additional analyses identified two contributions of perceived realism: a common factor combining realism with memory recall; and an independent factor, as might arise from a mismatch between memory and case evidence. These findings support the hypothesis that complex decisions rely on perceived realism in light of memory retrieval.

  PublisherDOI

• Good Word! Vocabulary, Style and Coherence in Children's Writing

  2025-11-24

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Vocabulary is a relatively neglected area of writing development. The focus for much recent work within the framework of ‘language in education’ has been on either syntax, cohesion or situational context in different writing activities. Vocabulary, or lexis, as some linguists prefer to call it, has similarly been a relatively neglected area in linguistics. Again the focus has been largely on syntax and, more recently, on discourse. Yet, for most teachers, vocabulary is important. For better or worse, ‘he has a good vocabulary’ is a distinct sign of praise. ‘Good word’ is regularly written by teachers in the margins of pupils’ writing. Pupils are often exhorted to make greater use of a dictionary or thesaurus. Socially-responsible linguists, therefore, have a duty to make accessible to teachers what findings there are regarding the structure of vocabulary in English. The more that is known about lexis, as with other levels of language organization, the better equipped teachers will be to effect a systematic and principled development and assessment of vocabulary use.

  PublisherDOI

• Neural Mechanisms of Reward Prediction Error in Autism Spectrum Disorder

  UNC Libraries · 2024-07-27

  articleOpen access

  Few studies have explored neural mechanisms of reward learning in ASD despite evidence of behavioral impairments of predictive abilities in ASD. To investigate the neural correlates of reward prediction errors in ASD, 16 adults with ASD and 14 typically developing controls performed a prediction error task during fMRI scanning. Results revealed greater activation in the ASD group in the left paracingulate gyrus during signed prediction errors and the left insula and right frontal pole during thresholded unsigned prediction errors. Findings support atypical neural processing of reward prediction errors in ASD in frontostriatal regions critical for prediction coding and reward learning. Results provide a neural basis for impairments in reward learning that may contribute to traits common in ASD (e.g., intolerance of unpredictability).

  PublisherDOI

• A Nexus Model of Restricted Interests in Autism Spectrum Disorder

  UNC Libraries · 2024-07-27

  articleOpen access

  Restricted interests (RIs) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are clinically impairing interests of unusual focus or intensity. They are a subtype of restricted and repetitive behaviors which are one of two diagnostic criteria for the disorder. Despite the near ubiquity of RIs in ASD, the neural basis for their development is not well understood. However, recent cognitive neuroscience findings from nonclinical samples and from individuals with ASD shed light on neural mechanisms that may explain the emergence of RIs. We propose the nexus model of RIs in ASD, a novel conceptualization of this symptom domain that suggests that RIs may reflect a co-opting of brain systems that typically serve to integrate complex attention, memory, semantic, and social communication functions during development. The nexus model of RIs hypothesizes that when social communicative development is compromised, brain functions typically located within the lateral surface of cortex may expand into social processing brain systems and alter cortical representations of various cognitive functions during development. These changes, in turn, promote the development of RIs as an alternative process mediated by these brain networks. The nexus model of RIs makes testable predictions about reciprocal relations between the impaired development of social communication and the emergence of RIs in ASD and suggests novel avenues for treatment development.

  PublisherDOI

• Neural Mechanisms of Social and Nonsocial Reward Prediction Errors in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

  UNC Libraries · 2024-07-27

  articleOpen access

  Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired predictive abilities; however, the neural mechanisms subsuming reward prediction errors in ASD are poorly understood. In the current study, we investigated neural responses during social and nonsocial reward prediction errors in 22 adolescents with ASD (ages 12-17) and 20 typically developing control adolescents (ages 12-18). Participants performed a reward prediction error task using both social (i.e., faces) and nonsocial (i.e., objects) rewards during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Reward prediction errors were defined in two ways: (a) the signed prediction error, the difference between the experienced and expected reward; and (b) the thresholded unsigned prediction error, the difference between expected and unexpected outcomes regardless of magnitude. During social reward prediction errors, the ASD group demonstrated the following differences relative to the TD group: (a) signed prediction error: decreased activation in the right precentral gyrus and increased activation in the right frontal pole; and (b) thresholded unsigned prediction error: increased activation in the right anterior cingulate gyrus and bilateral precentral gyrus. Groups did not differ in brain activation during nonsocial reward prediction errors. Within the ASD group, exploratory analyses revealed that reaction times and social-communication impairments were related to precentral gyrus activation during social prediction errors. These findings elucidate the neural mechanisms of social reward prediction errors in ASD and suggest that ASD is characterized by greater neural atypicalities during social, relative to nonsocial, reward prediction errors in ASD. Autism Res 2020, 13: 715-728. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: We used brain imaging to evaluate differences in brain activation in adolescents with autism while they performed tasks that involved learning about social and nonsocial information. We found no differences in brain responses during the nonsocial condition, but differences during the social condition of the learning task. This study provides evidence that autism may involve different patterns of brain activation when learning about social information.

  PublisherDOI

• Stylistics and real readers

  2023-04-19 · 2 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Stylistics has long claimed to be an empirical method of literary analysis. One aspect of this empiricism is stylistics’ commitment to studying the effect of texts on readers. In this chapter, the authors give a selective overview of literary linguistic research into real readers, focusing on two aspects: experimental approaches to foregrounding and its effect on readers, and recent research undertaken by stylisticians into natural reading environments such as the book group. They suggest some future directions for research in this exciting and burgeoning field of stylistics. Before that, in the Historical perspectives the authors discuss the theoretical background of real reader research in stylistics. They consider reader-response criticism within literary studies more generally, and then introduce the two broad approaches to real reader research within stylistics: the empirical study of literature (ESL) and the naturalistic study of readers (NSR).

  PublisherDOI

• Executive function and underlying brain network distinctions for callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in adolescents

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2023-11-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The complexity of executive function (EF) impairments in youth antisocial phenotypes of callous-unemotional (CU) traits and conduct problems (CP) challenge identifying phenotypic specific EF deficits. We can redress these challenges by (1) accounting for EF measurement error and (2) testing distinct functional brain properties accounting for differences in EF. Thus, we employed a latent modeling approach for EFs (inhibition, shifting, fluency, common EF) and extracted connection density from matching contemporary EF brain models with a sample of 112 adolescents (ages 13-17, 42% female). Path analysis indicated CU traits associated with lower inhibition. Inhibition network density positively associated with inhibition, but this association was strengthened by CU and attenuated by CP. Common EF associated with three-way interactions between density*CP by CU for the inhibition and shifting networks. This suggests those higher in CU require their brain to work harder for lower inhibition, whereas those higher in CP have difficulty engaging inhibitory brain responses. Additionally, those with CP interacting with CU show distinct brain patterns for a more general EF capacity. Importantly, modeling cross-network connection density in contemporary EF models to test EF involvement in core impairments in CU and CP may accelerate our understanding of EF in these phenotypes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Resting-state connectivity underlying cognitive control's association with perspective taking in callous-unemotional traits

  Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging · 2023-03-02 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael McCarthy

  47 shared

• Svenja Adolphs

  University of Nottingham

  25 shared

• Scott A. Huettel

  21 shared

• Anne O’Keeffe

  17 shared

• Jacob Parelman

  University of Pennsylvania

  14 shared

• Paul Crawford

  Emerald Group Publishing (United Kingdom)

  13 shared

• Shabnam Hakimi

  13 shared

• John R. McRae

  12 shared