DEANNE WESTERMANAssociate Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University
Area: Cognitive Psychology
E-mail: wester@binghamton.edu
Phone: 607-777-4171
Office: Science IV, Room 363
Human memory, face recognition, memory illusions.
Center for Cognitive and Psycholinguistic Sciences (CAPS)
My research is in the area of human memory. Most of my research has been concerned with the processes underlying recognition memory. I am currently conducting experiments that investigate the contribution of perceptual fluency to different types of recognition tasks. It has been theorized that recognition memory decisions are determined, in part, by the perceptual fluency of the recognition probe. The relationship between perceptual fluency and recognition memory appears to be mediated by an attributional process whereby an enhanced level of fluency is interpreted as a sign that a stimulus has occurred in the past. That is, fluency is used as a heuristic in recognition memory decisions. The work that is currently being conducted in my lab investigates the degree to which fluency contributes to different types of recognition decision (e.g. Westerman, 2001), and the degree to which perceptual changes and the strength of the memory trace moderate the role that fluency plays in recognition decisions (e.g., Lloyd, Westerman & Miller, in press; Westerman, Lloyd, & Miller, in press; Westerman, Miller, & Lloyd, submitted). Our research on this topic suggests the attributional process that mediates the link between perceptual fluency is very sophisticated and is subject to meta-cognitive control.
I have also conducted research on the revelation effect in memory, the verbal overshadowing effect, and the influence of perceptual interference on recognition memory judgments.
(* indicates student coauthors)
Thapar, A., & Westerman, D. L. (in press). Aging and fluency based illusions of recognition memory. Psychology and Aging.
Westerman, D. L. (2008). Relativity and Fluency-Based Illusions of Recognition Memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(6), 1196-1200.
Miller, J. K., *Lloyd, M. E., Westerman, D. L. (2008). When does modality matter? Perceptual versus conceptual fluency-based illusions in memory. Journal of Memory and Language. 58, 1080-1094.
Kurilla, B. P. & Westerman, D. L. (2008). Processing fluency affects subjective claims for recollection, Memory & Cognition, 36, 82-92.
Lloyd, M. E., Westerman, D. L., & Miller, J. M. (2007). Familiarity from orthographic information: Extensions of the recognition without identification effect. Memory & Cognition, 35, 107-112.
