Kenneth R. Pugh (born c. 1957) is president, director of research, and a senior scientist at

Haskins Laboratories Haskins Laboratories, Inc. is an independent 501(c) non-profit corporation, founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut, since 1970. Haskins has formal affiliation agreements with both Yale University and the University of Connecticut; ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...

and professor in the Department of Psychology at

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, an associate professor in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...

, and director of the Yale Reading Center. Pugh is a cognitive neuroscientist and

experimental psychologist Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...

who is best known for his work on the neural, behavioral and cognitive underpinnings of

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

and other

cognitive Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

activities.

Education

Pugh received his B.S. in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

, summa cum laude, from the

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a Private university, private research university, research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York (state), New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long I ...

in 1982. He received his M.A. in 1987 and his Ph.D. in 1990, both in

Experimental Psychology Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...

from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

Scientific contributions

Pugh's primary contributions have been in the areas of

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...

and

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

. He was among the first scientists to use

functional magnetic resonance imaging Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...

(fMRI) to reveal brain activity associated with reading and reading disabilities. His current research employs combined behavioral and neurobiological measures and genetic information in the study of typical and atypical reading and language development, with a particular focus on

learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, non-human animals, and ...

and

plasticity Plasticity may refer to: Science * Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load * Behavioral plasticity, change in an organism's behavior in response to exposur ...

in disabled readers, including those with

dyslexia Dyslexia (), previously known as word blindness, is a learning disability that affects either reading or writing. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, wri ...

. Pugh is a member of the

National Academies A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ins ...

/ National Research Council Committee on Learning Sciences: Foundations and Applications to Adolescent and Adult Literacy. His most recent book, which he edited with Peggy McCardle of the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

, ''How Children Learn to Read: Current Issues and New Directions in the Integration of Cognition, Neurobiology and Genetics of Reading and Dyslexia Research and Practice'', provides a survey of contemporary research and thinking in these areas.

Selected publications

* Pugh, K., Rexer, K., Peter, M., & Katz, L. (1994). Neighborhood effects in visual word recognition: Effects of letter delay and nonword context difficulty. ''Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition'', 20, 639–648. * Shaywitz, B., Shaywitz, S., Pugh, K., Constable, T., Skudlarski, P., Fulbright, R., Bronen, R., Fletcher, J., Shankweiler, D., Katz, L., & Gore, J. (1995). Sex differences in the functional organization of the brain for language. ''Nature'', 373, 607–609. * Pugh, K., Shaywitz, B., Constable, T., Shaywitz, S., Skudlarski, P., Fulbright, R., Bronen, R., Shankweiler, D., Katz, L., Fletcher, J., & Gore, J. (1996). Cerebral organization of component processes in reading. ''Brain'', 119, 1221–1238. * Pugh, K. R., Sandak, R., Frost, S. J., Moore, D., & Mencl, W. E. (2005). Examining reading development and reading disability in English language learners: Potential contributions from functional neuroimaging. ''Learning Disabilities Research & Practice'', 20 (1), 24–30. * Pugh, Ken and McCardle, Peggy (eds.). (2009). ''How Children Learn to Read: Current Issues and New Directions in the Integration of Cognition, Neurobiology and Genetics of Reading and Dyslexia Research and Practice''. Psychology Press. * Diehl, J. J., Frost, S. J., Mencl, W. E., & Pugh, K. R. (2011). Neuroimaging and the phonological deficit hypothesis. In S. Brady, D. Braze & C. A. Fowler (Eds.), "Explaining individual differences in reading: Theory and evidence". New York: Psychology Press.

References

External links

Haskins Laboratories

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pugh, Ken Living people 1950s births New York Institute of Technology alumni University of Connecticut faculty American cognitive neuroscientists Yale School of Medicine faculty Ohio State University Graduate School alumni Year of birth missing (living people)