Directory » YUE DU
315
979-845-1668
Yue Du joined the Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management at Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in August 2025. He has a background in Mathematics (B.S. from Beijing Normal University) and Kinesiology (Ph.D. from University of Maryland, College Park). Before joining Texas A&M, he completed postdoctoral training and served as a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Yue’s research investigates the cognitive and computational principles of motor behavior. Key topics include action control, the lifespan development of sequence learning, timing perception, mechanical reasoning, and habit formation. At Texas A&M, he leads the ThincMo Lab (The Habit, Intelligence, and Computation in Motor Skill Lab), which uses psychophysics experiments, computational modeling, and patient studies to investigate how individuals acquire skills, build or break habits, and develop expertise through deliberate practice. The lab aims to advance understanding of mind–movement interactions, with the goal of improving motor rehabilitation and enhancing human performance in domains such as sports, education, and human augmentation.
Outside of the lab, Yue enjoys playing soccer and walking his dog.
Yue’s research investigates the cognitive and computational principles of motor behavior. Key topics include action control, the lifespan development of sequence learning, timing perception, mechanical reasoning, and habit formation. At Texas A&M, he leads the ThincMo Lab (The Habit, Intelligence, and Computation in Motor Skill Lab), which uses psychophysics experiments, computational modeling, and patient studies to investigate how individuals acquire skills, build or break habits, and develop expertise through deliberate practice. The lab aims to advance understanding of mind–movement interactions, with the goal of improving motor rehabilitation and enhancing human performance in domains such as sports, education, and human augmentation.
Outside of the lab, Yue enjoys playing soccer and walking his dog.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Highlighed Publications
Du, Y., Haith, A.M. Dissociable habits of response preparation versus response initiation. Nat Hum Behav 9, 1941–1958 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02215-4
Du, Y., Forrence, A. D., Metcalf, D. M., & Haith, A. M. (2024). Action initiation and action inhibition follow the same time course when compared under matched experimental conditions. Journal of Neurophysiology, 131(4), 757–767. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00434.2023
Du, Y., Krakauer, J. W., & Haith, A. M. (2022). The relationship between habits and motor skills in humans. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(5), 371–387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.02.002
Du, Y., & Clark, J. E. (2020). Beyond the mean reaction time: Trial-by-trial reaction time reveals the distraction effect on perceptual-motor sequence learning. Cognition, 202, 104287.
Du, Y., Valentini, N. C., Kim, M. J., Whitall, J., & Clark, J. E. (2017). Children and adults both learn motor sequences quickly, but do so differently. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00158
Du, Y., & Clark, J. E. (2016). New insights into statistical learning and chunk learning in implicit sequence acquisition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1193-4
Other Publications and Presentations
Kita, K., Du, Y., Haith, A.M. (Accepted) Switching between newly learned motor skills. Journal of Neuroscience
Waltzing, B. M., McAteer, S., Moreno-Verdú, M., Van Caenegem, E. E., Du, Y., & Hardwick, R. M. (2025). Separate Timescales for Spatial and Anatomical Information Processing of Body Stimuli. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 1–26.
Du, Y., & Haith, A. (2024). Seemingly" habitual” responses can be caused by both habits and strategic action selection. https://osf.io/7qs4r/download
Du, Y., & Haith, A. (2023). Habits are not automatic. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gncsf
Kita, K., Du, Y., & Haith, A. M. (2023). Evidence for a common mechanism supporting invigoration of action selection and action execution. Journal of Neurophysiology. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00510.2022
Prashad, S., Du, Y., & Clark, J. E. (2021). Sequence Structure Has a Differential Effect on Underlying Motor Learning Processes. Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 9(1), 38–57.
Du, Y., & Clark, J. E. (2018). The" motor" in implicit motor sequence learning: A foot-stepping serial reaction time task. Journal of Visualized Experiments: JoVE, 135.
Du, Y., Clark, J. E., & Whitall, J. (2017). Timing at peak force may be the hidden target controlled in continuation and synchronization tapping. Experimental Brain Research, 235(5), 1541–1554. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-4918-3
Du, Y., Prashad, S., Schoenbrun, I., & Clark, J. E. (2016). Probabilistic motor sequence yields greater offline and less online learning than fixed sequence. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00087
Massie, C. L., Du, Y., Conroy, S. S., Krebs, H. I., Wittenberg, G. F., Bever, C. T., & Whitall, J. (2016). A clinically relevant method of analyzing continuous change in robotic upper extremity chronic stroke rehabilitation. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, 30(8), 703–712. https://doi.org/10.1177/1545968315620301