Matthew Mundy

Matthew works in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University as an Associate Professor and Director of Education for Psychology. He uses cognitive neuroscience techniques to investigate healthy learning and memory, as well as factors that contribute to amnesia and perceptual deficits, caused by brain trauma or disease.

My research begins at the junction of perception and memory. Using functional neuroimaging, complemented with patient studies, I investigate how brain regions support learning and discrimination of complex visual stimuli (e.g., faces and scenes), a mechanism known as perceptual learning. Most memory theories assume that perceptual learning is dependent upon visual cortex, and is both psychologically and neurally distinct from other types of memory. My research has challenged this view revealing contributions from many brain areas, some of which are highly stimulus specific, including the medial temporal lobe (MTL), traditionally considered necessary for long-term memory. I work with healthy populations as well as brain injury patients and those who through disease or disorder, suffer from amnesia.