Kim Curby, Ph.D.

Email: curby@temple.edu
Phone: (215) 204-7325

Interests: Broadly speaking, I am interested in understanding the changes that occur in both the strategies and neural substrates supporting cognitive performance after learning. More specifically, my research focuses on visual learning; towards this end, my studies examine competencies such as face recognition, object recognition, and pattern recognition, as well as the influence of semantic learning on perceptual processing and perceptual abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders.

Kim Curby, Ph.D. joined the Department of Psychology (Brain and Cognitive Sciences) at Temple University as an Assistant Professor in 2007.  Dr. Curby takes a visual cognitive neuroscience approach, using behavioral experiments and fMRI to investigate how experience changes perceptual processing.  Her lab focuses on visual learning and the ways in which it interacts with, depends on, and influences attention, memory, and semantic knowledge. The goal of her research program is not only to expand theoretical knowledge and reveal conditions determining whether visual learning succeeds or fails, but also to provide insights that might aid in the development of visual expertise training programs.

Originally from Sydney, Australia, Dr. Curby received her B.S. with a dual major in psychology and biology from the University of Wollongong in New South Wales.  She earned her Master's and Ph.D. in psychology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.  Before taking her position at Temple, she continued her training at Yale University's Child Study Center, where she applied her knowledge of visual learning towards understanding why such learning, as in the case of face recognition, can sometimes fail among children with autism.

Dr. Curby heads the Object Perception and Learning lab (OPAL) at Temple.  Her work has appeared in outlets such as Nature Neuroscience , Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, and Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience .