Our Research

At the Preston Lab, we use a combination of behavioral and brain imaging techniques to explore how we form new memories, how we remember past experiences, and how our memory for the past influences what we learn in the present.

About Our Research Participate

Kids, Teens & Parents

Are you Interested in how your brain works? We are actively recruiting kids and teens for our studies of memory development  to learn more about how the brain changes as we grow up and how children and adolescents remember new things.

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Latest Publications

From studies of memory development to how memories influence our decisions, there is a lot going on at the Preston Lab. View our scientific papers:

Differentiation of related events in hippocampus supports memory reinstatement in development

Varga, N.L., Roome, H.E., Molitor, R.J., Martinez, L., Hipskind, E.M., Mack, M.L., Preston, A.R.* & Schlichting, M.L.*

*Authors made equal contributions

bioRxiv

Distinct hippocampal mechanisms support concept formation and updating

Mack, M.L., Love, B.C.*, & Preston, A.R.*

*Authors made equal contributions

bioRxiv

Mnemonic bridging across events relates to individual differences in sustained attention in younger and older adults

Tran, T.T., Madore, K.P., Tobin, K.E., Block, S.H., Puliyadi, K., Hsu, S.C., Preston, A.R., Bakker, A., & Wagner, A.D.

PsyARXiv

General knowledge and detailed memory benefit from different learning sequences

Noh, S.M., Bjork R.A., & Preston, A.R.

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 13(3), 329–341.

View

About Our Lab

The Preston Lab is a cognitive neuroscience lab made up of researchers and students at The University of Texas at Austin. Led by Alison R. Preston, Ph.D., the lab studies how kids, adolescents, and adults acquire and retain knowledge.

Meet Our Team

News & Events

Dissociable mechanisms for learning generalities and event details

Dissociable mechanisms for learning generalities and event details

October 21, 2024

Real-world decisions require understanding generalities and the ability to remember specific events. For instance, an art student might learn both the general painting style of JMW Turner and specific locations of each of his major works. In a new publication, we show that discriminating between broad categories versus individual events benefit from different learning sequences. ... Read more » Dissociable mechanisms for learning generalities and event details

Lab awarded new NIH grant!

Lab awarded new NIH grant!

October 19, 2024

The lab received a new 5-year NIH grant to study how changes in hippocampus and frontoparietal cortex from adolescence to emerging adulthood impact knowledge acquisition and reasoning. Reach out if you are an interested student or postdoctoral fellow who wants to get involved in the research. ... Read more » Lab awarded new NIH grant!

Undergraduate Research Assistant Application

Undergraduate Research Assistant Application

May 20, 2024

Interested in becoming a Volunteer Research Assistant with the Preston Lab? You can apply to one of our RA positions using this link: https://forms.gle/oXB2muVabkpkpFj17   Please note that the Preston Lab accepts Research Assistants on a rolling basis, depending on the needs of our lab during a given period of time. Due to the volume of applicants we receive, you will only be contacted if your application is selected to move on to the next round. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to our Lab Manager, Sara Abbas, at saabbas@austin.utexas.edu ... Read more » Undergraduate Research Assistant Application

Congratulations Ayesha!

Congratulations Ayesha!

March 27, 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Ayesha Nadiadwala for successfully defending her dissertation today! Ayesha joined the Preston Lab as a graduate student in Fall 2019. Co-mentored with Dr. Preston and Dr. Joey Dunsmoor, Ayesha spent her time as a graduate student at UT Austin exploring how different episodic memory processes are modulated by emotion. More specifically, she was interested in learning how emotion influences relationships between memory representations for events. Congratulations Ayesha! ... Read more » Congratulations Ayesha!