About

Steven J. Luck is the principal investigator of a cognitive neuroscience laboratory at the UC Davis Center for Mind & Brain. His lab, known as the Laboratory for Basic and Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, investigates how the mind operates, how it is implemented in the brain's hardware, and how cognitive processes can go awry in individuals with schizophrenia. The research primarily focuses on the visual system, which serves as a foundation for exploring complex cognitive concepts. The lab's work integrates basic and translational approaches to understand attention, visual working memory, and related cognitive functions, with a particular interest in the neural mechanisms underlying these processes and their dysfunction in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Data Mining
• Engineering
• Natural Language Processing
• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Systems engineering
• Linguistics
• Cognitive science
• Statistics
• Psychiatry
• Data science
• Psychotherapist
• Developmental psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• A confirmatory factor analysis of hyperfocusing and inhibitory control as separable cognitive domains in schizophrenia.

  Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science · 2026-03-09

  articleOpen access

  = 63) to determine whether executive function and hyperfocusing reflect separate underlying factors or a single general factor. Hyperfocusing tasks were change localization (measuring WM capacity), useful field of view (measuring ability to spread attention broadly), dot probe expectancy task, and within-trial repulsion (measuring repulsive interactions between WM representations). We also included three standard inhibitory control tasks: antisaccade, stop signal, and oculomotor stop signal. Using this data set, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate whether a two-factor solution with separate hyperfocusing and inhibitory control factors provided a better fit to the data than a solution with a single generalized deficit factor. We found that the two-factor model fit the data significantly better than the one-factor model. In the two-factor solution, the hyperfocusing factor scores were significantly greater in PSZ than in HCS. In addition, hyperfocusing and inhibitory control factor scores accounted for unique variance in a measure of overall cognitive ability. These results provide statistical support for the hypothesis that hyperfocusing is a coherent latent variable that accounts for covariance across a broad range of tasks and is separable from inhibitory control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Prior Trial Effects on Working Memory in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Healthy Control Individuals

  JAMA Psychiatry · 2026-04-15

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Healthy individuals typically show attractive serial dependence in working memory tasks, with responses biased toward recent inputs, whereas people with schizophrenia (SZ) reliably show the opposite-repulsive biases. Determining whether individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and a history of psychosis exhibit similar or distinct serial-dependence patterns is essential for clarifying shared vs disorder-specific cognitive mechanisms across the psychosis spectrum. Objective: To determine whether people with BD exhibit the repulsive bias seen in people with SZ or the attractive bias seen in healthy control (HC) individuals. Design, Setting, and Participants: This case-control study included individuals who met DSM-5 criteria for SZ or BD with a history of psychosis, along with matched HC participants recruited across 5 US sites. Clinical samples were recruited from outpatient psychiatric clinics and day programs, and HC participants were recruited from the community. A working memory task was used in which participants remembered the orientation of a teardrop-shaped object and reproduced it using a computer mouse after a variable delay. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale was used to quantify symptom severity. The study was conducted from September 2023 to April 2025. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome measure was the bias index, used to evaluate the extent to which current-trial responses were biased toward or away from previous-trial targets. Exposures: Diagnostic group and the orientation of the previous trial's target during a spatial working memory paradigm. Results: A total of 41 participants were included in BD group (21 [51%] male; mean [SD] age, 37.02 [11.53] years), 30 in the SZ group (18 [60%] male; mean [SD] age, 37.5 [9.04] years), and 27 in the HC group (16 [59%] male; mean [SD] age, 39.98 [11.01] years). Overall bias differed across groups, with people with SZ (mean, -1.99; 95% CI, -2.74 to 1.23) demonstrating significantly greater repulsive bias than both people with BD (mean, 0.44; 95% CI, -0.25 to 1.13) and HC individuals (mean, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.31 to 2.32). Fifteen of 27 HC individuals exhibited attractive bias, with none showing repulsive bias, whereas 17 of 30 people with SZ exhibited repulsive bias, with none showing attractive bias. Attractive bias was common in people with BD (13 of 41), but some exhibited a repulsive bias (7 of 41). Conclusions and Relevance: In this case-control study, attractive and repulsive serial biases differed between HC individuals and people with SZ, with some people with BD showing the HC pattern and few showing the SZ pattern. These results suggest that serial bias may serve as a valuable biomarker for pathophysiology and precision psychiatry.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Increased Reporting of Speech in Degraded Stimuli in Schizophrenia: A Case Control Study with Sine-Wave-Speech

  Schizophrenia Bulletin · 2025-12-13

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: People who hear voices may have strong prior expectations of speech, so that noisy auditory signals are resolved as speech. Data in non-clinical voice hearers suggest that voice hearing may involve sensitivity to speech in degraded stimuli. This has yet to be examined in people with schizophrenia (SZ). STUDY DESIGN: In this case-control study, we presented sine-wave-speech (SWS; made by replacing the formants in speech with pure tone whistles) to people with SZ (n = 63) and healthy controls (HC; n = 27). SWS is typically unintelligible on first exposure. However, once the listener knows that it is potentially intelligible as speech (by exposure to the unaltered speech template, which thus serves as a prior expectation), relatively high levels of comprehension are achieved. Our participants first listened to intelligible and unintelligible SWS and reported whether they heard speech. They were then exposed to the speech templates, and then the first phase was repeated. STUDY RESULTS: Compared to HC, people with SZ reported hearing more speech before template exposure. The Reveal increased both groups' false alarms and reporting of speech, but there was no interaction with group. Change in hit rates after the Reveal correlated with hallucinations, which is consistent with a greater influence of the priors enhancement in SZ patients who hear voices. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that people with SZ have stronger expectations of speech. This task has validity for hallucinatory voice hearing. It is also simple and convenient to administer, and may prove useful in detecting prodromal risk, as well as acute exacerbation in voice hearing.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Robust maintenance of both stimulus location and amplitude in a working memory model based on dendritic bistability

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-07-10 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Working memory is a core feature of cognition that enables items to be maintained and manipulated over short durations of time. Stored information can be binary, such as the presence or absence of an object, or graded, such as the graded intensity or location of a feature. Current computational models of working memory cannot robustly maintain both the graded intensity and spatial location of a stored item. Here, we show how this limitation can be overcome if neurons contain multiple bistable dendritic compartments. First, we illustrate the core mechanism for the storage of graded amplitude information in a simple spiking “autapse” circuit consisting of a single neuron connected to itself. Second, we reduce this model to a rate-based model that permits analytic understanding. Third, we implement this mechanism within a spatially extended architecture in which the spatial location of an item is encoded by the set of active neurons. In contrast to classic spatial working memory models, which only encode the binary presence of an item at a given location, the multi-dendrite-neuron model robustly encodes both the amplitude and location of an item in working memory in a noise-resistant manner and without requiring fine tuning of parameters. We show analytically that the key mechanism permitting the storage of amplitude information is equivalent to that of the simpler autapse circuit. This work provides a solution to the problem of encoding graded information in spatial working memory and demonstrates how dendritic computation can increase the representational capacity and robustness of working memory. Significance Statement Animals can readily remember both the location of an item and analog features of the item such as its amplitude or intensity. Remarkably, current computational models of working memory require extreme fine tuning of model parameters to perform this task. Here, we show how this limitation can be overcome if neurons have active dendritic processes that enable local dendritic compartments of the neuron to robustly maintain digital “up” (“plateau potential”) or “down” states. By activating a variable number of plateau potentials at each location, the models can jointly maintain both the location and amplitude of a stimulus in working memory in a noise-resistant manner. This work demonstrates how local dendritic processes can enhance the computational capabilities of working memory networks.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Memorization of novel patterns in working memory in a model based on dendritic bistability

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-07-11

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Working memory can hold many types of information and is crucial for cognition. Commonly, models of working memory maintain information such as hues or words by forming memory attractors through structured connectivity. However, real-world information can be novel, making it infeasible to use predefined attractors. In addition, most models—with or without attractors—have focused on maintaining binary categories instead of continuous information in each neuron. In the present study, we investigate how the brain might maintain working memory representations of arbitrary novel patterns with graded values. We propose an unstructured, rate-based network model in which each neuron has multiple dendrites. Each dendrite shows bistable activity, which qualitatively captures the conductance-based dynamics in the corresponding spiking model and emulates fast Hebbian plasticity. This network can flexibly maintain novel graded patterns under various perturbations without fine-tuning of parameters. Through analytical characterization of network dynamics during the encoding and memory periods, we identify different conditions that yield either perfect memories or several types of memory errors. Our analysis reveals a functional separation for network neurons into two groups with distinct behaviors. Overall, this architecture provides robust and analytically tractable storage of novel graded patterns in working memory.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing the impact of artifact correction and artifact rejection on the performance of SVM-based decoding of EEG signals

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-02-25

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Numerous studies have demonstrated that eyeblinks and other large artifacts can decrease the signal-to-noise ratio of EEG data, resulting in decreased statistical power for conventional univariate analyses. However, it is not clear whether eliminating these artifacts during preprocessing enhances the performance of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA; decoding ), especially given that artifact rejection reduces the number of trials available for training the decoder. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of artifact-minimization approaches on the decoding performance of support vector machines. Independent component analysis (ICA) was used to correct ocular artifacts, and artifact rejection was used to discard trials with large voltage deflections from other sources (e.g., muscle artifacts). We assessed decoding performance in relatively simple binary classification tasks using data from seven commonly-used event-related potential paradigms (N170, mismatch negativity, N2pc, P3b, N400, lateralized readiness potential, and error-related negativity), as well as more challenging multi-way decoding tasks, including stimulus location and stimulus orientation. The results indicated that the combination of artifact correction and rejection did not improve decoding performance in the vast majority of cases. However, artifact correction may still be essential to minimize artifact-related confounds that might artificially inflate decoding accuracy. Researchers who are decoding EEG data from paradigms, populations, and recording setups that are similar to those examined here may benefit from our recommendations to optimize decoding performance and avoid incorrect conclusions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A lifetime of reading experience facilitates the perception of crowded letters

  Journal of Memory and Language · 2025-08-13

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Combined conceptual and perceptual control of visual attention in search for real-world objects

  Attention Perception & Psychophysics · 2025-09-25 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  When we search for an object in the natural visual environment, we sometimes know exactly what the object looks like. At other times, however, we know only the category of the object. For example, if we are looking for our own bath towel, we might know that it is brown and is folded into a rectangle. However, if we are looking for a towel in a friend's house, we might not know its color or whether it is folded or lying in a clump. Consequently, we may sometimes be able to use specific perceptual features to guide search, but some search tasks are so conceptual in nature that the relevant visual features are difficult to specify. Here, we found that eye-movement patterns during visual search could be predicted by perceptual dimensions derived from crowd-sourced data (THINGS), but only when observers had previously seen the specific target object. When only the category of the desired object was known (because the observer had never seen the specific target), eye-movement patterns were predicted by conceptual dimensions derived from a natural language processing model (ConceptNet), and perceptual features had no significant predictive ability once the conceptual information was statistically controlled. In addition, as observers gained experience searching for a specific exemplar of a category, they became progressively more reliant on perceptual features and less reliant on conceptual features. Together, these findings provide novel evidence that conceptual information can influence search, especially when the precise perceptual features of an object are unknown.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ignoring salient distractors inside of the attentional window

  Journal of Vision · 2025-07-15

  articleOpen access

  Salient stimuli are often assumed to have an inherent power to attract attention. However, formal research has shown that attentional capture by salient distractors can often be attenuated. This ability to ignore salient distractors is typically thought to reflect top-down control of attention. However, an alternative theory has been proposed. According to the attentional window account, attention can be narrowly focused to prevent salient distractors from capturing attention. Importantly, it has been suggested that most prior evidence of top-down control could be a result of narrow attentional focusing. The present study examined attentional capture by salient distractors under different breadths of attentional focus, using ERP indices of attentional selection. Participants completed a shape discrimination task. Importantly, the shapes were arranged so that a color singleton appeared either inside or outside of attentional focus. Across several experiments, we found that the color singleton did not elicit evidence of attentional capture, as measured by the N2pc component and behavioral indices. In addition, control conditions that required the color singleton to be attended did produce an N2pc, showing the paradigm was sensitive to detect attentional selection of the salient stimulus. Altogether, these findings suggest that attentional capture by salient stimuli can be prevented even when attention is broadly focused across an entire display. This is inconsistent with the attentional window account and instead supports models of attention that allow for top-control control.

  PublisherDOI

• Signal suppression 2.0: An updated account of attentional capture and suppression

  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · 2025-07-29 · 19 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention and Working Memory in Schizophrenia

  NIH · $13.2M · 2001–2029

• NIH Grant R03MH098119

  NIH · $154k · 2015

• NIH Grant R29MH056877

  NIH · $395k · 2002

• NIH Grant R01MH063001

  NIH · $1.2M · 2007

• ERPLAB: Extensible, open source software for analysis of event-related potentials

  NIH · $2.7M · 2009–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Steven A. Hillyard

  University of California, San Diego

  94 shared

• James M. Gold

  88 shared

• George R. Mangun

  University of California, Davis

  82 shared

• H.–J. Heinze

  University Hospital Magdeburg

  79 shared

• Robert D. Melara

  City College of New York

  65 shared

• J. R. W. Mounts

  SUNY Geneseo

  65 shared

• T.F. Muente

  University of Lübeck

  65 shared

• A Goes

  University of California, San Diego

  65 shared

Labs

• Luck LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Neurosciences

  UCSD

  1993

• B.A., Psychology

  Reed College

  1986

Awards & honors

• Troland Award in Experimental Psychology from the National A…
• APA Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribu…
• American Psychological Foundation F. J. McGuigan Young Inves…
• James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award (2004)
• Elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists