Education & Professional History
Tufts University, BA; Washington University, MA, PhD
Julia Strand is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Carleton College. She holds a B.A. in Psychology & English from Tufts University, an M.A. and PhD. from Washington University in St. Louis, program Brain, Behavior, & Cognition, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience and Neuroengineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research is on how people perceive spoken language.
Open Science
In addition to her empirical work, Julia also writes about open science, meta-science, R, methodology, measurement, and transparency in research. She has served as an Associate Editor at Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science and on the programming committee for the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science. Datasets, stimulus materials, code, and teaching materials are available on her Open Science Framework Page. Her open science course, Psychology’s Credibility Revolution, was showcased by the Framework for Reproducible Research Training’s Pedagogies Initiative.
In the news
Outreach and beyond
At Carleton since 2011.
Highlights & Recent Activity
Recent external grants:
- NIH AREA grant 1R15DC018114-01, 9/1/2019-8/31/2022, “Evaluating the listening effort associated with audiovisual speech,” $404,634.00
- Association for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges support for a workshop on “Teaching and Employing Open Science Practices at Small Liberal Arts Colleges,” to be conducted 08/2023, $17,000
Current Courses
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Fall 2022
PSYC 110:
Principles of Psychology
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PSYC 290:
Cross Cultural Psychology Seminar in Prague: Directed Reading
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PSYC 300:
Special Topics in Psychological Research
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PSYC 390:
Independent Reading
-
PSYC 399:
Capstone Seminar
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Winter 2023
IDSC 250:
Color!
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PSYC 300:
Special Topics in Psychological Research
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PSYC 400:
Integrative Exercise
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Spring 2023
PSYC 220:
Sensation and Perception
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PSYC 392:
Independent Research
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PSYC 400:
Integrative Exercise
Strand’s research seeks to understand how humans perceive speech and recognize spoken words. Some research topics include:
- audiovisual integration (i.e., combining information about talking faces with what we hear);
- the influence of expectations and contextual information on spoken word recognition;
- the role of individual difference factors in spoken word recognition abilities,
- quantification and mathematical modeling of the processes underlying spoken word recognition
- measuring the cognitive effort necessary to understand speech
Visit the Perception Lab website for more information
Principles of Psychology (PSYC110) Syllabus
Sensation & Perception (PSYC220) with lab (PSYC221) All course materials
We will address the question of how humans acquire information from the world to support action, learning, belief, choice, and the host of additional mental states that comprise the subject matter of psychology. In other words “How do we get the outside inside?” We will initially consider peripheral anatomical structures (e.g. the eye) and proceed through intermediate levels of sensory coding and transmission to cover the brain regions associated with each of the major senses. Readings will include primary sources and a text. In addition to exams and papers, students in the lab will conduct an investigation into an area of personal interest.
Psychology’s Credibility Revolution (PSYC399) All course materials
In this open science seminar seminar, we explore the factors that contribute to false positives in the literature, including questionable research practices like p-hacking and selective reporting, flexibility in measurement, publication bias, and the incentive structure of science. For the comps paper, students will choose an area of interest and evaluate it through the lens of this discussion. Along the way, we’ll also discuss the strategies being used to improve the discipline and how to apply them to your own research and consumption of science.
The Psychology of Spoken Words (PSYC362) Syllabus
This course explores the cognitive and perceptual processes that allow humans to understand and produce spoken words. We will review major findings on word perception and production, and then focus on specific topics including the perception of accents in speech, language disorders, the links between music and speech, the connection between sounds and meaning, the influence of gesturing on word production, slips of the tongue, bilingualism, tip-of-tongue-states (being temporarily unable to recall a word), and other related issues.
Perceptual & Cognitive Expertise (PSYC372) Syllabus
Some people are able to play (and win!) a dozen games of chess simultaneously or remember thousands of digits of pi. Most people can effortlessly recognize thousands of faces and easily discriminate between similar speech sounds. How do people develop these levels of expertise? This course will explore the processes underlying perceptual and cognitive expertise. Topics include the development of expertise in music perception and performance, memory, sports, visual processing, and taste perception. We will also discuss how attaining expertise in a given domain changes information processing.
Summer Quantitative Reasoning Institute
Current Courses
-
Fall 2022
PSYC 110:
Principles of Psychology
-
PSYC 290:
Cross Cultural Psychology Seminar in Prague: Directed Reading
-
PSYC 300:
Special Topics in Psychological Research
-
PSYC 390:
Independent Reading
-
PSYC 399:
Capstone Seminar
-
Winter 2023
IDSC 250:
Color!
-
PSYC 300:
Special Topics in Psychological Research
-
PSYC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Spring 2023
PSYC 220:
Sensation and Perception
-
PSYC 392:
Independent Research
-
PSYC 400:
Integrative Exercise

When she isn’t in the classroom or the lab, Julia and her husband Jon chase after their darling kiddos, Lucy & Lola. In her down time, Julia likes action movies, cooking, running, and cutting up books.