Over a lifetime of experience, the human cognitive system acquires a vast amount of information, which ultimately comprises the knowledge base (semantic memory; Tulving, 1972, 1985). My main interests are in understanding how knowledge is acquired, organized, and how it influences performance in other tasks, as well as in methods to improve the establishment of the long-term knowledge base. Although much is known about the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of event or episodic/event memory (memory for specific events, associated with specific details such as time and place of occurrence), our understanding of knowledge is more limited, especially in regards to the acquisition process.
In my research, I test younger and healthy older adults, to understand how these cognitive processes change across the lifespan. As we age, certain aspects of memory, primarily those dependent on controlled processing, tend to decline, whereas general knowledge, language skills, and automatic processes are preserved. Thus, a developmental approach allows me to examine changes in memory as a function of age while also providing a means of testing theoretical accounts of different cognitive phenomena.
With support from an Understanding Human Cognition grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, I have recently been exploring how knowledge is acquired and integrated into the semantic system. In the field of memory research, this question is somewhat under-explored, in part because of the inherent difficulties involved in examining long-term knowledge empirically. This work has also led to some related projects examining lay definitions of knowledge, memory, and intelligence, three constructs that are closely related yet independent (and often studied separately).
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Colby students, click here to sign up for experiments via SONA. We are always recruiting students to participate in our studies! You do not have to be a psychology major (or even have taken a psychology course). For some studies, you may earn $5-15.
To see the available times and sign up, go to the Colby SONA website. If you have not created an account in the past, click on “Request Account.” These experiments are open to the entire student body.
Please check additional requirements and eligibility for each experiment. Email [email protected] if you have questions!