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Field

Integrative Life Sciences :
Brain and Nervous System

Research

JAPANESE
Assistant Professor Shao-Min (Sean) Hung（C）
Campus Katahira campus
Laboratory Systems Neuroscience
E-mail smhung＠tohoku.ac.jp
Website https://konaes.wixsite.com/shao-min-hung
I have been working on understanding how our brain processes information not captured by our consciousness, and how such information in turn prompts behavior. How does our brain select information and present it consciously to us? What happens to the unselected unconscious information? I am using psychophysics, eye tracking, EEG, fMRI, etc., to tackle these questions.
Google scholar
Career
I was a Psychology major at the National Taiwan University before I moved to Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School for a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience. Subsequently, I completed my postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology. Before joining Tohoku University, I was an Assistant Professor at Waseda University.
Selected Publications
  1. Hung, S. -M., Wu, D. -A., Hsieh, P. -J., & Shimojo, S. (2024). Implicit semantics gates visual awareness. Consciousness and Cognition, 125, 103771.
  2. Hung, S. -M., Adams, S. W., Molloy, C., Wu, D. A., Shimojo, S., & Arakaki, X. (2024) Practice makes imperfect: stronger implicit interference with practice in individuals at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. GeroScience, 46, 2777–2786. (Outstanding Publication Award Honorable Mention )
  3. Hung, S. -M., Wu, D. -A., Escobar, L., Hsieh, P. -J., & Shimojo, S. (2023). Extracting probability in the absence of visual awareness. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 1-11.
  4. Hung, S. M., Wu, D. A., Shimojo, S., & Arakaki, X. (2022). Stronger implicit interference in cognitively healthy older participants with higher risk of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 14(1), e12340.
  5. Hung, S. -M., & Hsieh, P. J. (2022). Mind wandering in sensory cortices. Neuroimage: Reports, 2(1), 100073.
  6. Hung, S. -M., & Hsieh, P.-J. (2021). Subliminal temporal integration of linguistic information under discontinuous flash suppression. Journal of Vision, 21(5):27, 1–10 
  7. Hung, S. -M., Wu, D. -A., & Shimojo, S. (2020). Task-induced attention guides and gates unconscious semantic interference. Nature Communications, 11(1), 2088.
  8. Hung, S. -M., Styles, S. J., & Hsieh, P. -J. (2017). Can a Word Sound Like a Shape Before You Have Seen It? Sound-Shape Mapping Prior to Conscious Awareness. Psychological Science, 28(3), 263–275.
  9. Hung, S. -M., Milea, D., Rukmini, A. V., Najjar, R. P., Tan, J. H., Viénot, F., Dubail, M., Tow, S. L. C., Aung, T., Gooley, J. J., & Hsieh, P. -J. (2017). Cerebral neural correlates of differential melanopic photic stimulation in humans. NeuroImage, 146, 763–769.
  10. Hung, S. -M., Nieh C. -H., & Hsieh, P. -J. (2016). Unconscious processing of facial attractiveness: invisible attractive faces orient visual attention. Scientific Reports, 6, 37117.
  11. Hung, S. -M., & Hsieh, P. -J. (2015). Syntactic processing in the absence of awareness and semantics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(5), 1376–1384.
     
Activities in Academic Societies
Vision Sciences Society
Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision
Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
Consciousness Research Network
Vision Society of Japan
The Japan Neuroscience Society
 
Teaching
Cognitive Psychology || Mind and Consciousness

Recent Activities

My research tackles the behavioral and neural correlates of unconscious and conscious processes. I am particularly interested in understanding the complexity of unconscious processes and how conscious and unconscious processes interact. I am also deeply intrigued by a relatively newly discovered class of photoreceptors, ipRGCs. What are the functions of these sluggish photoreceptors in humans? More recently, I have begun to utilize the change of implicit processing in older individuals to identify early cognitive deficits.

Message to Students

I enjoy working with motivated students! If you are interested in my work, please feel free to drop me an email.

Research