Jane Dywan

Professor, Ph.D. (Waterloo)

profile picture of Dywan J

Office: MC B321
905-688-5550 x3119
jdywan@brocku.ca

Dr. Dywan is a clinical neuropsychologist who studies age-related changes in cognitive function as they occur in healthy older adults. She focuses particularly on the relationship between a decline in attentional control and the ability to monitor the source of remembered events. By examining electrical event-related brain activation while participants engage in various cognitive tasks, she monitors neural activity occurring prior to a behavioural response. In this context, Dr. Dywan has also been examining the relation between heart-rate variability (vagal tone), an index of general physiological response, and control attention and response tendencies. She is also investigating how the general physiological reactivity associated with the perception of emotional information interacts with other cognitive functions. The inability to accurately perceive and physiologically respond to emotional expression may lead to an inappropriate response. In this regard, she has studied individuals with traumatic brain injury and violent offenders who vary in their degree of psychopathy.

Human neuropsychology

  • memory, attention, inhibitory control, error monitoring
  • aging, frontal lobe function
  • the relationship between physiological reactivity, cognitive function, and socially adaptive behaviour
  • ERPs, Vagal Tone

Choma, B., Hafer, C.L., Dywan, J., Segalowitz, S.J., Busseri, M. (2012). Political liberalism and political conservatism: functionally independent? Pers Indiv Diff, 53(4), 431-436.

William J. Tays, Jane Dywan, Lesley J. Capuana, Sidney J. Segalowitz, Age-related differences during simple working memory decisions: ERP indices of early recognition and compensation failure, Brain Research, Volume 1393, 1 June 2011, Pages 62-72, ISSN 0006-8993, 10.1016/j.brainres.2011.04.006.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899311006731)

Tays, W.J., Dywan, J., Segalowitz, S.J. (2009). General proactive interference and the N450 response. Neuroscience Letters, 462, 239-243.

Segalowitz, S.J. & Dywan, J. (2009). Individual differences and developmental change in the ERN response: Implications for models of ACC function. Psychological Research, 73, 857-870.

Mathewson, K.J., Dywan, J., Snyder, P.J., Tays, W.J., & Segalowitz, S.J. (2008). Aging and electrocortical indices of error feedback during a spatial learning task. Psychophysiology, 45, 936-948.

Tays, W.J., Dywan, J., Mathewson, K.J., & Segalowitz, S.J. (2008). Age differences in target detection and interference resolution in working memory: An ERP study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 2250-2262.

Dywan, J., Mathewson, K.J., Choma, B.L., Rosenfeld, B. & Segalowitz, S.J. (2008). Autonomic and electrophysiological correlates of emotional intensity in older and younger adults. Psychophysiology, 45, 389-397.

Segalowitz, S.J., Mahaney, P., Santesso, D.L., MacGregor, L., Muir, C., Dywan, J., & Willer, B. (2007). Retest reliability in adolescents of a computerized neuropsychological battery used to assess recovery from concussion. NeuroRehabilitation, 22, 243-251.

Munro, G., Dywan, J., Harris, G.T., McKee, S., Unsal, A. & Segalowitz, S.J. (2007). ERN varies with degree of psychopathy in an expression discrimination task. Biological Psychology, 76/1-2, 31-42.

Stemmer, B., Segalowitz, S.J., Dywan, J., Panisset, MM., & Melmed, C. (2007). The error-related negativity in nonmedicated and medicated patients with Parkinson’s disease. Clinical Neurophysiology, 118, 1223-1229.

Munro, G., Dywan, J., Harris, G.T., McKee, S., Unsal, A. & Segalowitz, S.J. (2007). electrophysiological evidence of response inhibition in psychopathy. Neuroscience Letters, 418, 149-153.

Mathewson, K.J., Dywan, J., & Segalowitz, S.J. (2005). Brain bases of error-related ERPs as influenced by age and task. Biological Psychology, 70, 88-104.

Wells, R., Dywan, J., & Dumas, J. (2005). Life satisfaction and distress in family caregivers as related to specific behavioural changes after traumatic brain injury. Brain Injury, 19, 1105-1115.

Dywan, J., Mathewson, K.J., & Segalowitz, S.J. (2004). Error related ERP components and source monitoring in older and younger adults. In Falkenstein, M. & Ulsperger, M. (Eds.) Errors, conflicts, and the brain: Current opinions on performance monitoring (pp. 184-191). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience..

Hopkins, M.J., Dywan, J., & Segalowitz, S.J. (2002). Altered electrodermal response to facial expression after closed head injury. Brain Injury, 16 (3), 245-257.

Pailing, P.E., Segalowitz, S.J., Dywan, J., & Davies, P. (2002). Error-related negativity and response control. Psychophysiology, 39, 198-206.

Dywan, J., Segalowitz, S. J., & Arsenault, A. (2002). Electrophysiological response during source memory decisions in older and younger adults. Brain and Cognition, 49, 322-340.

Dywan, J. (2000). Excitatory and inhibitory influences on the remembering brain. Brain and Cognition, 42,82-84.