Ryan C. Yeung

Postdoctoral Fellow

Rotman Research Institute

Toronto, ON

Hi there! I’m Ryan.

I study how and why we vividly relive the past, with a focus on intrusive memories. Chances are good that you remember your last birthday, vacation, or commute to work; but do you relive those events with vivid detail and feelings of being sent back in time? These subjective experiences have widespread consequences for mental function and dysfunction, yet little is known about how they arise in daily life.

My research uses naturalistic, experimental, neuroimaging, and computational methods to investigate basic mechanisms of autobiographical memory and apply them towards understanding mental health disorders involving excessive reliving (e.g., PTSD). In particular, I use AI methods to model both subjective (e.g., emotion, visual imagery) and objective (e.g., content) memory features, relate them to real-life outcomes, and enable novel analyses at an unprecedented scope and scale.

Outside of research, I’m a fan of hipster music, hipster tabletop role-playing games, and insisting that I’m not actually a hipster.

news

Nov 24, 2025	Finally launched the big website reformat. Still under construction!
May 01, 2025	I’m officially a Schmidt AI in Science Postdoc! Thanks UofT and Schmidt Sciences!
Apr 10, 2025	Got interviewed by the Association for Psychological Science about our recent work on trait memory/imagery and PTSD!

selected publications

The curse of imagery: Trait object and spatial imagery differentially relate to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder

Ryan C Yeung, H Moriah Sokolowski, Carina L Fan, Myra A Fernandes, and Brian Levine

Clinical Psychological Science, 2025

Abstract DOI OSF

Imagery is integral to autobiographical memory (AM). Past work has highlighted the benefits of high trait imagery on episodic AM, including faster, more detailed, and more vivid retrieval. However, these advantages may come with drawbacks: Following potentially traumatic events, strong visual imagery could promote the intrusions characteristic of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Conversely, spatial imagery could schematize potentially traumatic events, countering vivid recollection and reducing distress. We examined relationships between trait object imagery (e.g., color, shape), spatial imagery (e.g., abstract representations, locations), and PTSD symptoms in two independent samples: trauma-exposed adults (n = 806) and undergraduates (n = 493). As predicted, higher object imagery was associated with more PTSD symptoms in both samples. Higher spatial-schematic processing was associated with fewer PTSD symptoms in the trauma-exposed sample, although this effect was confined to men in the undergraduate sample. Different forms of imagery have different—or even opposing—relationships with episodic AM that affect PTSD symptoms.