I was born in Moscow, Russia, and immigrated to Boston MA, USA, in 1992. Immigration not only built my character, but also contributed an extra letter to my first name; it is pronounced the same as Maria, and is, in fact, the same name. I obtained a B.A. in psychology from Bard College, NY. During my undergraduate studies at Bard I mainly focused on the areas of Social Cognition and Abnormal Psychology. My senior thesis and preceding projects under the supervision of Dr. D.F. Lopez examined unrealistically positive self-evaluations in a sample of college students, in relation to their academic performance, personal relevance of performance domains, and the temporal proximity of performance feedback. After receiving my B.A. in 2000, I spent two years working in the Eve Movement and Vision laboratory at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, with Dr. J.J.S. Barton, in collaboration with Dr. D.S. Manoach . My research there was divided between two discrete areas: voluntary control of eye movements and face perception/recognition. We studied these functions both in healthy controls and neuropsychiatric patients. I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at McGill University under the supervision of Dr. G.A. O'Driscoll. I plan to investigate cortical substrates of voluntary oculomotor control and social gaze properties in health and schizophrenia.

Graduate Studies Scholarship, 2003.

Richard H. Tomlinson Ph.D. Fellowship Award, 2002.

Carol F. Creedon Prize in Psychology, 2000.

Andrew Jay Prize, 1999.

3^rd place for a research paper presentation at Hudson Valley Undergraduate Psychology Conference, 1998.

Andrew Jay Bernstein '68 Memorial Scholarship, 1998.

Werner Wolff Scholarship, 1998.

Werner Wolff Scholarship, 1997.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova M, Press DZ, Intriligator J & O'Connor M. Developmental prosopagnosia: a study of three patients. Brain and Cognition, 2003; 51(1): 12-30.

Cherkasova MV, Manoach DS, Intriligator J & Barton JJS. Antisaccades and task-switching: interactions in controlled processing. Experimental Brain Research, 2002; 144(4):528-537.

Manoach DS, Lindren KA, Cherkasova MV, Goff DC, Halpern EF, Intriligator J & Barton JJS. Schizophrenic subjects show deficient inhibition but intact task switching on saccadic tasks. Biological Psychiatry, 2002; 51(10): 816-826.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV, Lindgren K, Goff DC, Intriligator JM, & Manoach DS. Antisaccades and task switching: studies of control processes in saccadic function in normal subjects and schizophrenic patients. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2002; 956: 250-263.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova M, & O'Connor. Covert recognition in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. Neurology, 2001; 57(7): 1161-1168.

Monoach DS,LindrenKA, Cherkasova MV, Goff DC, Halpern EF, Intrilligator J & Barton JJS. Schizophrenic subjects show deficient inhibition but intact task switching on saccadic tasks. Biological Psychiatry, 2002; 51(10): 816-826.

Barton JJ, Radcliffe N, Cherkasova MV, Edelman J, Intrilligator JM. Information processing during face recognition: the effects of familiarity,inversion, and morphing on sacnning fixations. Perception, 2006; 35(8): 1089-1105.

Barton JJ, Cherkasova MV. Impaired spatial coding within objects but not between objects in prosopagnosia. Neurology, 2005; 65(2): 270-274.

Barton JJ, Cherkasova MV, Lindgren KA, Goff DC, Manoach DS. What is perseverated in schizophrenia? Evidence of abnormal response plasticity in the saccadic system. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2005; 114(1): 75-84.

Barton JJ, Cherkasova MV, Hefter R. The overt priming effect of faces in prospagnosia. Neurology, 2004; 63(11): 2062-2068.

Barton JJ, Cherkasova MV, Press SZ, Intriligator JM, O'Connor M. Perceptual functions in prosopagnosia. Perception, 2004; 33(8): 939-56.

Ramchandrian RS, Manoach DS, Cherkasova MV, Lindgren KA, Goff DC, Barton JJ. The relationship of saccadic peak velocity to latency: evidence for a new prosaccadic abnormality in schizophrenia. Experimental Brain Research, 2004; 159(1): 99-107.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV, Lindgren K, Goff DC, Intriligator JM, & Manoach DS. Antisaccades and task switchings: studies of control process in saccadic funciton in normal subjects and schizophrenic patients. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2002; 956: 250-263.

Ramchandran RS, Manoach DS, Cherkasova MV, Lindgren KA & Barton JJS. The relation of peak velocity to the latency of prosaccades and antisaccades in normal subjects and schizophrenic patients.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova M, Press DZ, Intriligator J & O'Connor M. Perceptual Function in prosopagnosia.

Lopez DF & Cherkasova MV. I'm better (or worse) than average: the adaptive function of optimistic and pessimistic biases.

Cherkasova M, Barton JJS. Spatial judgements within but not between objects are impaired in prosopagnosic patients. Brenda Milner Symposium, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2003.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova M, Lindgren K, Goff D, Manoach DS. Perseveration in schizophrenia: insights from the effects of recent trial history in an antisaccadic task. American Academy of Neurology, Honolulu, 2003.

2. Barton JJS, Radcliffe N, Cherkasova MV, Intriligator JM. Scanning faces: a cognitive information processing approach to face recognition. North American Neuro-ophthalmologic Society, Snowbird, 2003. In: http://nanosweb.org

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV. The perceptual deficit in prosopagnosia affects within-object spatial processing, not holistic perception. North-American Neuro-ophthalmology Society, Snowbird, 2003. In: http://nanosweb.org

Edelman JA, Cherkasova MV, Nakayama K. Scene-based memory system for the guidance of eye movements to invisible targets. Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, 2002. In: Vision Sciences Society Abstr., supl.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV. Perception, recognition and imagery in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia American Academy of Neurology, Denver, 2002. In: Neurology 58 (suppl 3): A266.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV. Spatial judgments within but not between objects is impaired in prosopagnosic patients. American Academy of Neurology, Denver, 2002. In: Neurology 58 (suppl 3): A244

Barton JJS, Cherkasova MV. Lightness discrimination, constancy, and illusions after occipital lesions. American Academy of Neurology, Denver, 2002. In Neurology 58 (suppl 3): A513.

Cherkasova MV, Barton JJS. Spatial judgments within but not between objects is impaired in prosopagnosic patients. Eastern Psychology Association, Boston, 2002.

Barton JJS, Chen W, Cherkasova MV. Structure, articulation and distance effects in errors of lightness constancy. Eastern Psychology Association, Boston, 2002.

Ramchandran RS, Manoach DS, Lindgren KA, Cherkasova MV, Barton JJS. Longer latencies result in slower peak velocities for saccadic tasks in schizophrenic subjects. Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Fort Lauderdale, 2002.

Edelman JA, Cherkasova MV, Nakayama K. Metrics of non-visually guided saccades are enhanced by prior post-saccadic feedback. Society for Neuroscience, 2002. In: Soc for Neurosci. Abstr., supl.26:575.6.

Cherkasova MV, Barton JJS. Spatial judgment within but not between objects is impaired in prosopagnosic patients. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Research Day, Boston, 2002.

Barton JJS, Cherkasova M, O'Connor M. Covert semantic processing in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. American Academy of Neurology, Philadelphia, May 2001. In: Neurology 56 (suppl 3): A244.

Cherkasova MV, Manoach D, Intriligator J, Keenan JP, Barton JJS. Antisaccades and task shifting: interactions in controlled processing. Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Mar 2001

Manoach D, Cherkasova M, Goff, D, Intriligator J, Barton JJS. Antisaccades and task-shifting in schizophrenia: The costs of combining executive functions. Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, Nov 2000

Cherkasova MV, Cook NM, Kernan T. Are Bard students really a bunch of tree-loving liberals: the effect of a verbal request on recycling behavior. Presented at the Hudson Valley Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Dominican College, NY, 1998.

Lopez DF, Cherkasova MV. How do action-control beliefs and academic goals influence motivation and performance. Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, 2002. In: Proc. of the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society.