My research activities focus on the cognitive aspects of visual processing, in both normal individuals and those who have suffered brain injuries. My main objectives are to identify the normal mechanisms involved in visual processing and to characterize the functional deficits resulting from brain damage. I use behavioural and electrophysiological methods. My current projects concern a number of themes:

1. Reading: visual mechanisms (i.e. shape perception and visuospatial attention) involved in accessing orthographic-lexical knowledge when recognizing written words, and organization of the lexical representation system
2. Visual recognition of objects: properties of the system for encoding visual shapes and representation of structural knowledge

My research program is aimed at improving our understanding of the influence of music on cognition and health in both the non-clinical population and among people with neurological disorders or mental health problems. In particular, I am interested in the effect of musical moods (e.g. relaxing, stimulating) on the emotional state and on cognition (e.g. the executive functions). For instance, my research focuses on examining the impact of background music on cognition and on developing musical activities to reduce stress. My research is supported by the SSHRC.

Experimental cognitive science, computer models and simulations of cognitive processes and neuroimaging to determine why and how attention functions or fails.

In terms of research, Dr. Larochelle is interested in the categorization processes that are active in perception and underlie our conceptualization of the world around us. The approach adopted in this research involves an experimental dimension aimed at inferring the nature of categorization processes and the resulting representations, as well as a calculatory dimension aimed at simulating their properties. Certain work in progress (with D. Cousineau and C. Lefebvre) is looking at the automatic detection of different categories of objects in the field of vision, and suggesting a model of visual attention. Other work (with G. Lacroix) is looking at the mnesic traces left by exemplars encountered and the relative importance of these traces in categorizing objects (in contrast to the role played by classification rules, for instance). Previous work (with H. Pineau and S. Richard and I. Soulières) contributed to a detailed analysis of the time taken to verify membership in natural categories (e.g. trees, birds) and nominal categories (e.g. numbers), so as to better specify these different types of mental representations. Lastly, other earlier work (with D. Saumier and M. Izaute and J. Morency) concentrated on the knowledge and meta-knowledge of the meaning of words.