Research Interests |
Haiku version:
Wield your mind better:
offload thinking, and improve
metacognition.~2 line version:
My research interests concern the systematic limitations of human cognition, and how to compensate for them by improving metacognition &/or offloading cognition onto the environment (particularly, using emerging technology).
Current prose version:
My general research interests concern the systematic limitations of human cognition (e.g., illusions, biases, heuristics) and how we can profitably use educational and technological interventions to compensate for those shortcomings. Specifically, my research addresses basic questions in learning and memory, judgment and decision-making, and problem-solving, as well as how to use scientific knowledge of the relative cognitive strengths and weaknesses of humans versus computers to offset shortcomings in these cognitive domains. These interventions can be metacognitive, by training learners to improve their metacognitive skills, or technological, by offloading difficult cognitive demands onto the environment.
New opportunities for exploring these approaches -- and a balance between them -- will likely emerge as accelerating advances in information technology continue to change how we live.
A combination of basic and applied research using multiple methodologies is ideal for these interests.
An earlier prose version:
I am interested in studying human cognition with the goal of gaining a greater understanding of the mind, and of applying that understanding toward improving human life in the social and educational realms, specifically by encouraging metacognitive sophistication (and using technology to do so). I have done interdisciplinary research at the intersection of cognitive psychology and information technology, education, and social psychology.
I am also interested in how the accelerating advancement of technology is changing the way we live and interact, and, more fundamentally, what it means to be human. As our social, physical, and informational environments become more and more mismatched with our environment of evolutionary adaptation, what new problems and insights emerge?