My research interests are broadly defined along
the following categories:
- Prospective Memory is the ability to remember to perform future
actions, such as going to a meeting or taking a medication. I am interested
in both theoretical issues, such as whether prospective memory is mediated
by the same brain structures as regular (retrospective) memory, and practical
issues, such as what is the most effective way of improving a person's
prospective memory.
- Object Displays are a special way of formating information that
has to be mentally combined to be useful. For example, a nuclear power
plant operator needs to consider many different pieces of information in
deciding whether the plant is functioning normally. She has to mentally
combine these individual pieces of information in complicated ways to make
her decision. An object display is designed to relieve her of many of the
mental computations, making her judgment more rapid and precise. I am interested
in why object displays aid in these complex judgment tasks, and what can
be done to improve other display formats to make them as effective as object
displays.
- Alarm Displays are devices that monitor an environment or system
and alert you when there potentially is a problem. A common example of
an alarm display is a smoke detector. Alarm displays reduce the workload
of a busy person because they no longer have to monitor for the irregular
event (e.g. smoke.) The alarm display has been modeled in terms of signal
detection theory. However, the current model is limited, and I am interested
in expanding the model to include more ecologically valid situations.
- Evaluation of New Teaching Paradigms is a research interest
that has evolved from my participation in the Center for Electronic Learning
and Teaching (CELT). While computers have much to offer for teaching and
learning, there is little empirically valid evidence to supports the hypothesis
that they improve learning. My interests are both theoretical, why do/don't
they help students learn, and practical, what is the best means of holding
student's attention.
Research is a vital part of Psychology. So much remains for us to know
about human behavior and thinking. If you are interested in any of the
topics listed above, please come and see me,
and together we can start to answer some of the great unanswered questions
about cognition!
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