Research

Our lab investigates attention and memory in human adults. In particular, we study:

Source Monitoring: The processes by which we attribute mental experiences to sources.

For example: How do I know whether I actually went on a hot air balloon ride yesterday or merely dreamt about it? How do I determine whether someone is currently speaking to me or I am thinking (or hallucinating)? Did I take my medicine, or just think about doing so? Did I actually see lineup person #3 shoot the clerk or seem to remember that she did because I saw her mugshot?

Such source monitoring puzzles range from the trivial to the epic with respect to consequence; we solve them all day, every day, and usually, but not always, with little effort and fair accuracy. The primary interest of the MaC Lab is understanding how we do this; what are the mechanisms/processes involved.

Related research topics include:

People's (mis)memory for where they get their news. As more and more people get their "news" online, sometimes from sources that blur the lines between news and entertainment, there is the potential for memory distortion for actual news events. Our lab is investigating various stereotype-driven errors in people's source memory for where they get their news.

The phenomenal experience of remembering. What are the factors that give rise to various subjective experiences associated with what we call "remembering", e.g., confidence, vividness.

Application of theories of human memory to real-world problems. We are interested in the mechanisms involved in the development of false memories, including eyewitness suggestibility and the issue of "fake news". We also study interpersonal reality monitoring (i.e., how we judge the veracity of other people’s memory accounts)

For all of these topics, we are also interested in:

Changes associated with aging. The Everyday Cognition Project is investigating age-relating changes in all of the areas discussed above.

Impact of emotion

We are also interested in the cognitive sequelae of some forms of psychopathology, such as depression, schizophrenia, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).