Joanna Lewis

• Ph.D. – University of Central Florida, USA
• B.S. – Colorado State University, USA

Dr. Joanna E. Lewis is an Assistant Professor at the University of Northern Colorado. She received her doctorate from the University of Central Florida in 2018 in Human Factors and Cognitive Psychology. During her education, she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow.  She joined the faculty of Psychological Sciences in 2018. She came to UNC because she wanted to join a university where mentorship and scholarship were strongly valued. She has overseen graduate and undergraduate students’ independent projects. All of her undergraduate mentees have continued on to doctoral programs.

Dr. Lewis’ research primarily focuses on human selective visual attention. Her work on attention primarily addresses attentional capture in visual search (i.e., look for a target object among distractors), and specifically for dynamic singletons. For example, do we prioritize objects that abruptly appear or loom towards us? She also evaluates the role of anxiety and threat perception in these visual processes. She also conducts research on changes in cognition during normal aging, the impact of technology on human performance, and cybersecurity categorization.

She has taught undergraduate courses on Research Methods in Psychology and Sensation & Perception.

• Sarno, D. M., Lewis, J. E., & Neider, M. B. (2019). Depth benefits now loading: Visual working memory capacity and benefits in 3-D. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81(3) 684-693.
• Lewis, J. E. & Neider, M. B. (2017). Designing Wearable Technology for an Aging Population. Ergonomics in Design, 25(3), 4-10.
• Lewis, J. E. & Neider, M. B. (2016). Through the looking (Google) glass: The impacts of heads-up displays on visual attention. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 1(1), 1-13.
• Shaw, A., Kenski, K., Stromer-Galley, J., Martey, R., Clegg, B., Lewis, J., Folkestad, J. and Strzalkowski, T. (2015). Serious Efforts At Bias Reduction: The Effects Of Digital Games And Avatar Customization On Three Cognitive Biases. Journal of Media Psychology, doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000174.
• Lewis, J. E., & Neider, M. B. (2015). Fixation Not Required: Characterizing Oculomotor Attention Capture for Looming Stimuli. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 77(7), 2247-2259.