John Stern

Washington University in Saint Louis

Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >

John A. Stern

URL: http://news-info.wustl.edu/sb/page/normal/612.html

Media Assistance:

Gerry Everding
Dir. of News and Electronic Communications
gerry_everding@wustl.edu
(314) 935-5230

Professor Emeritus of Psychology in Arts & Sciences

Expertise: psychophysiology, biometrics, lie detection, stress monitoring, eye blinks, fatigue, drowsy drivers

Bio:

Stern

Stern, a professor emeritus of psychology, is a pioneer in the integrative and emergent science of psychophysiology. His main field of interest is human psychophysiology applied to human factors problems and major concern is with using the eye and eyelids as indicants of aspects of information processing and fatigue processes. His work has explored the use of physiological measures to make inferences about cognitive activity, including the analysis of eye blink rates to assess an individual's stress levels. Past work has examined the use of physiological measures as a means of detecting that an individual may be engaging in lies, deceptions or other stressful and misleading behaviors, including participation in peer reviews of polygraph technologies. His current focus is on the use of electroencephalographic and gaze control measures (blinks, saccades, pupil diameter, and head movements) to identify periods of lowered attention to performance of cognitively demanding tasks, including the development of systems to alert drivers when they are becoming to drowsy to effectively operate a motor vehicle.

WUSTL Contact Information:

Work:

(314) 935-6535

E-mail:	jastern@artsci.wustl.edu
Address:	Campus Box 1125 One Brookings Dr. St. Louis, MO 63130

Education:

Ph.D. in Psychology at University of Illinois

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

Showing 1 Stories.

Candidates' eyes could be revealing

Center for Security Technologies researcher studies alertness variables (http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/4018.html)

Oct. 11, 2004 --

Stern

The eyes may well be the window to the soul, but they also are indicators of the mind's condition. People who have watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates earlier this month and preparing for the final debate on Oct. 13 could gather clues to the candidates' state of mind by watching the candidates' eyes. According to John Stern, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, and pioneer of blinking research, there is solid evidence that people blink frequently at points in time when they momentarily stop taking in and processing information.

Showing 1 Stories.

Additional Background:

Honors and affiliations have included:

Awarded Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Awarded Fellow, American Psychological Association
President, Pavlovian Society
President, Society for Psychophysiological Research
Past President of Psychophysiologists Interested in Ergonomics - a working group of the International Ergonomic Association.

Sample Publications:

What's behind blinking? The mind's way of punctuating thought. (Sciences, 1988)
Blink rate: a possible measure of fatigue. (Human Factors,1994, 36, 285 - 297 in collaboration with D. Boyer, and D. Schroeder.)

Related Information

Related Links:


•	Stern research suggests warning system for fatigued drivers nearing reality with new eye data (http://news-info.wustl.edu/feature/1999/JuneJuly99-drivers.html)

•	Stern comments on blink rates of politicians -- liar, liar? (http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/lyingsigns4.htm)

•	Research: 'The pupil of the eye: What can it tell us about "mental processes"? (http://www.hql.or.jp/gpd/eng/www/nwl/n08/ergo.html)

•	Stern's peer review of automated polygraph scoring technology (http://www.stoeltingco.com/polygraph/peerreviewb.htm)

Related Groups: