My current work is focused on two distinct research programs:
Remote Response Technology ("clickers"): In a test of the effectiveness of clickers for enhancing attendance and learning, I matched simple, factual clicker questions to specific items on tests in a live classroom. I found that performance on exam questions increased by more than 10% when students were given the opportunity to answer in-class clicker questions targeting the same content. Subsequent studies point to change in memory strength as a more likely source of the effect than increased study or attention-grabbing. Current work is directed at examining repetition as an underlying cause. In addition, I have won a grant from IES that is allowing me to continue this work in other classrooms (college-level biology, physics and psychology) and to further explore the cognition underlying the technology's effect.
False Memories: I have been investigating the cognitive mechanisms underlying false memories by exploring the misinformation effect with some of my graduate students. While the existence of the misinformation effect is widely accepted, the cognition underlying the phenomenon is not well understood. In a series of laboratory experiments with one of my students I have been exploring the question of memory coexistence in the misinformation effect. Specifically, using a new paradigm we developed that takes advantage of priming effects, we have found evidence that that real and false memories can co-exist. That is, both the original and suggested memories can be stored in memory. We believe that which memory is retrieved is determined by relative activation strength at time of test.
In a separate study, we examined factors that determine which memory is selected at testing. Specifically, we explored the role of presentation, misinformation, and test modalities in the strength of the misinformation effect. We hypothesized that the probability of a false memory report would decrease when the trace for true information was stronger than the false, and when it matched the test modality. We took advantage of the picture superiority effect to enhance strength of the original or misinformation traces relative to one another. We also capitalized on encoding specificity to manipulate likelihood of access to the original or misinformation traces. Subjects were shown either a visual or linguistic presentation of a scene, then given visual or linguistic misinformation after the fact. We then probed memory with a visual or linguistic test. We found the misinformation effect was reduced when both encoding specificity and the picture superiority effect were working in favor of the original information, and it was enhanced when both phenomena were working in favor of the misinformation. In sum, we have shown that, not only do the true and false memories coexist, but the rates of the misinformation effect can be enhanced or reduced by manipulating the strength of a given memory trace and the cues that lead to it.