Researcher Profile: Dr. Raymond Klein
A member of the Brain Repair Centre since the beginning, Dr. Klein has focused his research on “mind repair” through an understanding of the brain’s networks of attention.
Dr. Klein says “I believe in the mind-brain identity theory. The organ of the mind is the brain and brain repair works if the mind is repaired. While my focus is on behaviour, I have a strong interest in how the brain is wired,” says Dr. Klein. His basic and applied research on human attention and performance has generated over 200 publications.
While now technically retired, Dr. Klein, Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University still operates an active Cognitive Science Lab. “Retirement has led me to a place where I have the chance to concentrate on my scientific hobbies. My research staff and I presently work with three honours students, four grad students and a crew of volunteers, and I am enjoying our research projects immensely.” Dr. Klein’s advice to students is “do what you enjoy - but try to be paid for it.” He adds that the field of Mind & Brain is both important and popular, and he believes that the prospects for employment in this area are increasing.
The Klein Lab’s interest in attention led them to develop The Attention Network (www.attentionnetwork.ca), a publicly searchable database, of all research studies that have used any variant of the Attention Network Test (ANT) to answer any question. The initial funding to begin this monumental effort (there are almost 1000 such studies) was provided by the BRC. The Attention Network Test (ANT) was developed by Dr. Michael Posner, Dr. Klein’s PhD supervisor in the 1970s, to measure the efficacy of the brain’s networks of attention: alerting, orienting and executive control. In recent years, the Klein Lab has developed a game-like version of the ANT, called the AttentionTrip. Like the ANT, the AttentionTrip provides measures of attention’s networks, but the gamified version better sustains participant engagement. Therefore, in future research involving studies whose methods induce, or whose participants are susceptible to, boredom, the AttentionTrip should be preferred over the traditional ANT.
Dr. Klein regards the BRC as an important entity that funds transformative projects and keeps students and faculty on the Dalhousie Campus connected. Dr. Klein is a co-founder of the Canadian Society of Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science, an organization whose primary function is to advance Canadian research in experimental psychology and behavioural neuroscience. He, along with the Chairs at Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s University, will be hosting the society’s 2022 meeting in Halifax next summer, a meeting which is expected to attract around 300 attendees from the research community.