Our Research

At the highest level, we are interested in memory systems and how they change with age. Our three main lines of research are related to individual differences and age-related differences in working memory. The first line involves evaluating the efficacy of different strategies that people use to help improve their memory. For instance, when memorizing a grocery list, why do some people recite the list repeatedly and others organize the items according to the layout of the grocery store (i.e., produce, meat, dairy)? And when do certain strategies benefit us the most? The second line of work involves how individuals effectively segment, or chunk, incoming information and how they update their working memory representations accordingly. Findings have shown that an individual’s ability to segment information at encoding predicts how well they are able to remember it at a later time. Finally the third line of work involves how older adults use their existing knowledge to help them remember information about everyday activities.

There are numerous ongoing projects being conduted in the lab. Please use the menu to your left to navigate our current studies.