My research emphasizes two parallel lines of inquiry, one from the perspective of
comparative psychology (cognition as it is manifest across species) and the other from the
perspective of psychometrics (individual differences and human factors in performance).
These two perspectives complement one another in the psychological processes that I
currently study: attention/executive functions, and learning/training. Thus, recent
experiments include studies of individual and group differences in attention profiles,
comparative studies of uncertainty monitoring, procedures that improve the effectiveness
of computer-based instruction, and the effects of spaceflight on behavior and performance.
These research interests are also illustrated by some recent presentations.
Visual illusions, reversible images and impossible figures such as the ones used as a background on this web site have a long history of interest in psychology. They help to illustrate the interaction of stimulation (and so-called "bottom-up processes") and expectation ("top-down") in perception.
Similarly, the color-words "blue" and "red" -- both printed in blue -- were stimuli from an important and popular experiment reported first by Stroop (1935) and replicated hundreds of times since. Generally, people are slower and less accurate naming the color of the word when the word itself names an incongruous color (e.g., RED) than a congruous color (e.g.,BLUE) . Humans and monkeys show comparable effects with numerical versions of the Stroop task.
Together, these images serve to illustrate the fact that, often in psychology, "failures" in cognition are interesting and meaningful. It is the fact that we see patterns that aren't really on the screen and that we cannot ignore the meaning of words and numbers even when they hinder performance that makes such instances so revealing about the nature of perception, attention, learning and memory.
My research, like the studies of many other contemporary psychologists, is designed to
examine the competition between the environment, experience, expectations, and executive
functions (e.g., intentions, plans, metacognitions) as they vie to constrain or control human
and nonhuman-animal behavior at any moment in time.
For more information on this research, contact me at dwashburn@gsu.edu.