Professional Bio

Professor Ray has retired and is not accepting graduate students

Research Interests

William Ray's research focus lies at the interface of clinical psychology and psychophysiology (particularly EEG), as related to anxiety dissociation, emotionality, and individual differences. Part of this work has been basic in nature as reflected in trying to understand what basic psychophysiological measures can tell us, as well as how they can be applied. Current work in the lab is focusing on anxiety, lapse of awareness, dissociation, and hypnosis as well as the use of nonlinear dynamical techniques referred to as chaos.

Recent Publications

Oathes, D., Siegel, G., & Ray, W. (2011). Chronic worry and temporal dynamics of emotional processing.Emotion, 11, 101-114.

Oathes, D., Squillante, C., Ray, W., & Nitschke, J. (2010), The Impact of Worry on Attention to Threat. PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE 5(10): e13411. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013411

.Zhang, K., Johnson, B.,  Pennell, D., Ray, W., Sebastianelli, W. & Slobounov, S  (2010). Are Functional Deficits in Concussed Individuals Consistent with White Matter Structural Alterations: Combined fMRI & DTI Study. Experimental Brain Research. 204, 57-70.

Jaiswal, N., Ray, W., & Slobounov, S (2010) Encoding of visual-spatial information in working memory require more cerebral efforts than retrieval: Evidence from EEG and virtual reality study. Brain Research, 1347,80-89.

Slobounov, S., Zhang, K., Pennell, D., Ray, W., Johnson, B., & Sebastianelli, W. (2010). Functional Abnormalities in Normally-Appearing Athletes Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: a functional MRI study.Experimental Brain Research,204, 57-70.

Mṻller, E. M., Nguyen, J., Ray, W. J., Borkovec, T.D. (2010). Future oriented decision making in Generalized Anxiety Disorder is evident across different versions of the Iowa Gambling Task. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 41, 165-171.

Ray, W.J., Molnar, C., Aikins, D., Yamasaki, A.,  Newman, M., Castonguay, L., & Borkovec, T.D. (2009). Startle response in generalized anxiety disorder. Depression and Anxiety, 26, 147-154.

Oathes, D.J. & Ray, W.J.(2008). Dissociative tendencies facilitate speeded emotional processing of graphical and semantic stimuli. Emotion,8, 653-661.

Oathes, D.J., Ray, W.J., Yamasaki, A.S., Borkovec, T.D., Newman, M.G., & Castonguay, L.G. (2008). Worry,     generalized anxiety disorder, and emotion: Evidence from the EEG gamma band. Biological Psychology.79, 165-170.

Rockstroh, B., Wienbruch, C., Ray, W.J. & Elbert, T. (2007). Abnormal oscillatory brain dynamics in schizophrenia: A sign of deviant communication in neural network? BMC Psychiatry, 7, 44-

Ray, W., J., (2007). The experience of agency and hypnosis from an evolutionary perspective. In G Jamieson (ed.) Hypnosis and conscious states: The cognitive-neuroscience perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bruce, A., Ray, W., & Carlson, R. (2007). Understanding cognitive failures: What's dissociation got to do with it?  American Journal of Psychology, 120, 553-563.

Bruce, A., Ray, W., Bruce, J., Arnett, P., & Carlson, R. (2007). The relationship between executive functioning and dissociation.  Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 29, 626-633.

Slobounov, S., Ray, W. , Cao, C., & Chiang, H. (2007). Modulation of Cortical Activity as a Result of Task-Specific Practice, Neuroscienceletters, 421, 126-131.

Keil, A., Stolarova, M., Moratti, S., & Ray, W. J. (2007). Adaptation in human visual cortex as a mechanism for rapid discrimination of aversive stimuli. NeuroImage, 36, 472-479.

Rosset-Llobet, J., Candia, V., Fabregas, S., Ray, W., Pascual-Leone, A. (2007). Secondary motot disturbances in 101 patients with musician’s dystonia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 78, 949-953.

Ray, W., Odenwald, M., Neuner, F., Schauer, M., Rug, M., Rockstroh, B., & Elbert, T. (2006). Decoupling neural networks from reality: Dissociative experiences in torture victims are reflected in abnormal brain waves in left frontal cortex. Psychological Science, 17, 825-829.

Keil, A., Blessing, A., Linden, D., Heim, S., & Ray, W. (2006). Acquisition of affective dispositions in dementia patients.  Neuropsychologia, 4, 2366-2373.

Oathes, D. J., & Ray, W. J. (2006) Depressed mood, index finger force, and motor cortex stimulation: A transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study. Biological Psychology, 72, 278-290.

Ray, W.J., & Slobounov, S. (2006) Foundations of brain imaging methodology in behavioral research. In S. Slobounov and W. Sebastianelli (eds.) Foundations of sport-related brain injury. New York: Springer Publishing.