Ziyao Zhang

How do we generate flexible, goal-directed behavior?

I study how cognitive control and working memory support flexible behavior in dynamic environments. I use a combination of cognitive neuroscience techniques (EEG & fMRI) and computational modelling.

My earlier work during my master’s training focused on how attention can be directed away from distractors, while my graduate research examined how working memory supports distraction-resilient behavior. My ongoing work builds on these foundations to investigate what algorithms and representations give rise to flexible, adaptive behavior in dynamic environments with changing demands.

I am a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley, working with Amitai Shenhav.

I was a Harrington Graduate Fellow at University of Texas at Austin working with Jarrod Lewis-Peacock. I completed my B.S. at Central China Normal University, and my M.S. at Lehigh University, where I worked with Nancy Carlisle.
[Curriculum Vitae] [Google Scholar] [Research Gate]

Preprints

• Rapid inversion of singleton distractor representations underlies learned attentional suppression
  Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A.
  [preprint]

• The consequences of strategic prioritization in working memory
  Vergauwe, E., Hautekiet, C., Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A.
  [preprint]

Journal Publications

2025

• Maintenance suppression enhances subsequent associative learning
  Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A. (2025) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  [pdf]

• Signal intrusion explains divergent effects of visual distraction on working memory
  Zhang, Z. & Lewis-Peacock, J.A. (2025) Psychological Science
  [pdf][preprint]

2024

• Integration of history information drives serial dependence and stabilizes working memory representations
  Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A. (2024) Journal of Neuroscience
  [pdf]

2023

• Bend but don’t break: Prioritization protects working memory from displacement but leaves it vulnerable to distortion from distraction
  Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A. (2023) Cognition
  [pdf]

• Explicit attentional goals unlock implicit spatial statistical learning
  Zhang, Z., & Carlisle, N.B. (2023) Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
  [pdf]

• Prioritization sharpens working memories but does not protect them from distraction
  Zhang, Z., & Lewis-Peacock, J.A. (2023) Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
  [pdf]

2022

• Assessing recoding accounts of negative attentional templates using behavior and eye tracking
  Zhang, Z., & Carlisle, N.B. (2022) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
  [pdf]

• Benefits from negative templates in easy and difficult search depend on rapid distractor rejection and enhanced guidance
  Zhang, Z., Sahatdjian, R., & Carlisle, N.B. (2022) Vision Research
  [pdf]

2020

• Probing early attention following negative and positive templates
  Zhang, Z., Gapelin, N., & Carlisle, N.B. (2020) Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
  [pdf]

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