Dr Nicolas Dumay
Senior Lecturer in Psychological Science
N.Dumay@exeter.ac.uk
4666
+44 (0) 1392 724666
Washington Singer 309
Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Perry Road, Prince of Wales Road, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
Overview
I am an experimental psychologist working at the boundary between memory and language. My research initially focused on spoken word access processes in speech perception, with a doctoral work looking at the nature of acoustical markers of word boundaries and how these modulate the access to word memories. My research interests, however, have progressively moved towards language and memory consolidation. My research effort focuses on the dynamic changes that occur in memory and how these affect how we acquire, perceive, produce or forget linguistic information. I seem to have made an influential contribution through my collaboration with Gareth Gaskell (University of York). We showed that memory consolidation, especially during sleep, plays a major role in word acquisition. Our findings have opened up a new line of investigation, and, as a result, I find myself at a very exciting location on the research map, at a crosstalk between language and memory, sleep research and the neurobiology of learning.
I welcome student applications to work with me on these issues, at any level of the cursus, from second-year internship to PhD.
Area of expertise:
- Memory consolidation
- Language plasticity
- Sleep
- Spoken word access and segmentation processes
- Emotion
Qualifications
Postgraduate Certificate for Higher Education (University of Kent, 2010)
Doctorate in Psychological and Educational Sciences (Universite libre de Bruxelles, 2006)
Career
I am honorary Staff Scientist at the Basque Center for Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain.
I am Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Psychonomic Society.
I am also on the editorial boards of the following journals:
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition
Links
- CNN coverage
- Google Scholar Citations
- 8 Fascinating Things We Learned About Sleep In 2015
- Personal website
- A video of the International Workshop on Learning and Memory Consolidation which I organized (July 2014)
Research group links
Research
Research interests
My research effort focuses on the offline changes that occur in memory and how these affect how we acquire, perceive, produce or forget linguistic (but also other types of) information. This means that I study memory consolidation as an object of investigation, but also use it to by-pass the influence of item idiosyncrasies when testing psycholinguistic hypotheses.
Research networks
UK:
Colin Davis, University of Bristol
Celia Morgan, University of Exeter
Europe/US:
Arty Samuel, NY Stony Brook
Effie Kapnoula, BCBL
Mark Pitt, Ohio State
Blair Armstrong, University of Toronto
Stephanie Massol, Universite de Lyon
Research grants
- 2018 ESRC
Dumay, N. "Does sleep flush out the unwanted leftovers of recent cognitive activities?" £630,100 (FEC) - 2016 Experimental Psychology Society
Dumay, N. Small Research Grant £2,500 - 2012 Ministry of Education and Science (Spain)
Dumay, N. "The impact of reconsolidation on vocabulary acquisition: a neural and behavioural investigation." 88,330 € - 2009 British Academy Small Grants
Dumay, N. "Are lexical representations abstract or episodic?" £7,478 - 2009 University of Kent
Dumay, N. "The impact of repeated letters on visual word recognition." £1,000 - 2008 Experimental Psychology Society
Nicolas Dumay. EPS Small Research Grant £2,500
Publications
Journal articles
Conferences
External Engagement and Impact
Editorial responsibilities
Editorial Boards
Psychological Science (from January 2020)
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition (since September 2019)
Adhoc reviewer for the following journals:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Current Opinion in Behavioural Sciences. PloS One. Journal of Memory and Language. Neuropsychologia. Cognition. Psychophysiology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Acta Psychologica. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. Applied Psycholinguistics. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics. Journal of Cognitive Psychology. Language and Speech. L’Année Psychologique.
Adhoc reviewer for the following funding bodies:
European Research Council (ERC); National Science Foundation (USA); Economic and Social Research Council (UK); Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK); De Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NL); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Media Coverage
Dumay, N. (2015, Cortex) was covered by 542 news articles across 54 different countries (newspapers, blogs and magazines). This was relayed by TV channels, including CNN and the Spanish and French TV. Here are a few links, if you are interested:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/30/health/a-sleep-to-remember-memories-tied-to-a-nights-rest/
http://www.elmundo.es/salud/2015/07/30/55b507b922601d5c538b4572.html
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4509007.ece
http://www.bcbl.eu/2015/08/dormir-nos-ayuda-a-recuperar-recuerdos/
Research networks
Fellow of the Psychonomic Society
Full member of European Society for Cognitive Psychology
Full member of Experimental Psychology Society
Workshops organised
Conference main organiser:
International Workshop on Learning and Memory Consolidation, July 10-12, 2014, San Sebastian, Spain (www.bcbl.eu/events/learning/en/)
South West Undergraduate Psychology Conference, March 22, 2014, Exeter University, UK
International Workshop on Reading and Developmental Dyslexia, May 30-June 1, 2013, San Sebastian, Spain (www.bcbl.eu/events/IWORDD)
Scientific Committee of the 17th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, September 29-October 2, 2011, San Sebastian, Spain www.bcbl.eu/events/escop2011/en/comite/desde2/
Organised symposia:
Dumay, N., & Samuel, A.G. (2011). Memory consolidation: Surprisingly pervasive effects on language at multiple levels. 17th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, September 29-October 2, 2011, San Sebastian, Spain www.bcbl.eu/events/escop2011/en/conference/
Teaching
I generally teach core modules in cognition, and language and memory.In 2018 I received the University Teaching Excellence Award in Psychology.
Previous teaching also included:
- PSY3403 - Contemporary Issues in Psychology (convener)
Modules
2023/24
- PSY2209 - Cognition Practical I
- PSY2303 - Cognition and Emotion
- PSY3420 - Brain Plasticity and Language Learning across the Lifespan