Sandy Neargarder, Ph.D.



Education:
Vanderbilt Univeristy, Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, 1997.
Vanderbilt Univeristy, M.A., Experimental Psychology, 1993.
Wright State University, B.S. with honors, Psychology, 1991.


Current Positions:
Research Associate, Boston University.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Bridgewater State College.


Personal Interests
When I'm not teaching or doing research, I like to engage in a number of activities including snow skiing, biking, and volleyball. I also enjoy painting, traveling, and singing.


Current Research:
I conduct research examining visual and cognitive deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease.  I've also recently published two papers examining the neuropsychological profile of two different mitochondrial disorders.


Biographical Information:
I grew up in St. Mary's, Ohio, which has a population of 8,342.  St. Mary's is located on a 9 mile by 3 mile lake, which at one time was the largest artificial body of water in the world.  I am the youngest of 6 children (no, I am not spoiled regardless of what my siblings say) and I have a great 21 year-old son named Ben.  I also have one large 14-year old cat named Norman.  Norm and his littermate Stanley (who passed away recently) are shown below.


Publications:

Bogdanova, Y., Neargarder, S., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2008). Mapping mental number line in physical space: vertical and horizontal visual number line orientation in asymptomatic individuals with HIV. Neuropsychologia, 46(12), 2914-2923.   [view abstract]

Clark, U. S., Neargarder, S., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2008). Specific impairments in the recognition of emotional facial expressions in Parkinson’s disease. Neuropsychologia, 46(9), 2300-2309.   [view abstract]

Neargarder, S. A., Carvalho, J, & Sullivan, K. (2007). Neuropsychological profile of a high-functioning family with a mitochondrial cytopathy. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 20(3), 193-201.   [view abstract]

Cronin-Golomb, A., Gilmore, G. C., Neargarder, S., Morrison, S. R., & Laudate, T. M. (2007). Enhanced stimulus strength improves visual cognition in aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Cortex, 43, 952-966.   [view abstract]

Neargarder, S. A. & Murtagh, M., Wong, B., & Hill, E. (2007). The neuropsychologic deficits of MELAS: Evidence of global impairment. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 20(2), 83-92.   [view abstract]

Wong, B., Cronin-Golomb, A., & Neargarder, S. A. (2005).  Patterns of visual scanning as predictors of emotion identification in normal aging.  Neuropsychology, 19(6), 739-749.   [view abstract]

Neargarder, S.A., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2005). Characteristics of visual target influence detection of change in naturalistic scenes in Alzheimer's disease.  Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 18, 151-158.   [view abstract]

Gilmore, G. C., Cronin-Golomb, A., Neargarder, S. A., & Morrison, S. R. (2005).  Enhanced stimulus contrast normalizes visual processing of rapidly presented letters in Alzheimer's disease.  Vision Research, 45(8), 1013-1020.   [view abstract]

Dunne, T. E., Neargarder, S. A., Cipolloni, P. B., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2004).  Visual contrast enhances food and liquid intake in advanced Alzheimer’s disease.  Clinical Nutrition, 23(4), 533-538.   [view abstract]

Neargarder, S. A., Stone, E. R., Cronin-Golomb, A., & Oross, S. III (2003).  The Impact of Acuity on Performance of Four Clinical Measures of Contrast Sensitivity in Alzheimer's Disease.  The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 58B(1), P54-P62. Addendum: 58B (3), P142.   [view abstract]


Select Presentations:

        Seichepine, D. R., McCallum, M., Neargarder, S., Gilmore, G.C., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2008). Finding the pill on the floor: How luminance and contrast affect elderly individuals’ object detection abilities across computerized and naturalistic assessments. Poster presented at the biennial Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.

        Dunne, T., Sullivan, K., Laudate, T. M., Seichepine, D. R., Reese, B., Neargarder, S., Gilmore, G. C., Cronin-Golomb, A. (2008). Recreating the real world: Lessons from a controlled naturalistic study of visual cognition. Poster presented at the biennial Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.

        Gross V., Harris C., Neargarder S., Cronin-Golomb A. (2007). Pop-out effects in color-graphemic synesthesia. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, New York City, New York.

        Cronin-Golomb, A., Gilmore, G. C., Neargarder, S., Morrison, S. R., & Laudate, T. (2006). Enhanced stimulus contrast improves visual cognition in aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Poster presented at the biennial Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.

        Neargarder, S. & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2002).  Synesthesia: Beyond the Common Variety (which itself is not so common).  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Behavioural Neuroscience, Point-au-pic, Canada.  View abstract (May 21, 9:35).

        Neargarder, S. A. & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2002).  The effect of group acuity differences on contrast sensitivity performance in Alzheimer's disease patients.  Poster presented at the biennial meeting of Cognitive Aging, Atlanta, Georgia.  Poster Session II, #39.

        Neargarder, S. A. & Murtagh, M. P. (2001).  Neuropsychological Evaluation of MELAS Syndrome: A Case Study.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Behavioural Neuroscience, Marrakesh, Morrocco.  Abstract 5:10.

        Neargarder, S. A. & Dunne, T., & Cipolloni, P. B. (2000).  The effect of enhanced contrast on nutritional intake in advanced Alzheimer's disease.  Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 26, Program No. 575.8.  Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA.

        Neargarder, S. A. & Herscher, M. (2000).  Influence of visual deficits on the detection of change in real-world scenes in Alzheimer's disease.  Cognitive Aging Conference Abstracts, 8, 3:3.  Poster presented at the biennial meeting of Cognitive Aging, Atlanta, Georgia.

        Neargarder, S. A. & Oross, S. III (1998).  Dementia in Down syndrome: Examination of visual perception and cognitive abilities.  Cognitive Aging Conference Abstracts, 7, 15:7.  Poster presented at the biennial meeting of Cognitive Aging, Atlanta, Georgia.

        Shimp, S. A., Fox, R., & Oross, S. III (1993).  Discrimination of small differences in direction of global motion.  Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 19, 774.  Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, D.C.

        Shimp, S. A., Fox, R., & Oross, S. III (1992).  Movement in orthogonal directions: Discrimination by mentally retarded and nonretarded adults.  Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 18, 1395.  Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Anaheim, California.


My Cats:

Stanley
	The Boys.
Norman, relaxing.