Mills Godwin Jr. Life Sciences Building Room 330 & 343
Psychology Department
Old Dominion University
IVAN K. ASH, Ph.D., Principal Investigator.
Research Interests: Problem Solving, Reasoning, Insight, Comprehension, Representation Formation, Judgment and Decision Making, Hindsight Bias, and Individual Differences.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, M.S., ABD Applied Experimental Program.
Social Cognition, Judgments of Trust and Distrust, The Hindsight Bias effect, Media Imagery, Social Stigma, Implicit Cognition.
KIMBERLY LEE, Masters Program in Experimental Psychology
Attention, Working Memory, Problem Solving
Undergraduate Researchers:
Jessica Stinnette, Jessica Frey, Dylan Wilson, Sheana McSwiggin
Hindsight Differences between Judgment Tasks
Collaborator: Ross May
The hindsight bias effectis a commonly studied memory phenomenon in which people's memory for their prior judgments is affected by the actual outcome of the situation. In other words, after the fact, people falselytend to think that they knew what was going to happen. Some researchers have proposed that all hindsight effects are caused by common cognitive processes. Other researchers have proposed that hindsight bias effects are actually a set of different phenomenon caused by different cognitive processes that all lead to similar effects (changes in judgments based on exposure to outcome information). In these studies we are systematically testing different unitary and non-unitary theories of the hindsight bias effect.
Emotion, Attention & Creativity
Collaborator: Viktoria Tidikis
This project examines how valence of emotions influences creative performance. The predominant view in the field holds that positive emotions enhance creativity while negative emotions stifle it. However, some studies show that in some cases negative emotions foster the creative process while positive emotions impede it. We are investigating if the relationships between emotional valence and attentional processing my explain these disparate findings.
Effects of Emotional News Images on Attitudes and Judgments.
Graduate Researcher: Martin Smith-Rodden
This experiments investigate the effects on the presentations of photographic images (highly emotionally arousing/ low arousal / no image) on people's attitudes after reading a news story. Experiment 1 presented a story and images about the U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan War. Experiment 2 replicated the design with a story and images about African famine relief efforts. Consistent with predictions of the affect heuristic model of judgment formation, the addition of emotionally arousing pictures had an effect on people's support for the war in Afghanistan and their support for famine aid.
Laboratory Alumni:
Graduate Researchers:
Viktoria Tidikis, Ph.D. in Applied Experimental Psychology in 2012
Ross May, Ph.D. in Applied Experimental Psychology in 2012
Rebekka Gordon, Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology in 2008
Clinton Comer, M.S. in Experimental Psychology in 2008
Ann Edwards, M.S. in Experimental Psychology in 2009
Brad Whittet, M.S. in Experimental Psychology in 2009
Undergraduate Researchers:
Patrick Graessle, Alexandrea Ruth, Laesha Brooks, John Wu, Jose Gutierrez, Stephen Casazza, Crystal Ruffin, Chelsea Kidd, Jessica Erickson, Scott Miles, Shari Osborne, Linda Walubengo, Grace Chiou, Erick Morgan, Sara Peoples, JoAnne Boyce, Grace Choiu, Jennifer Morey, Ashley Phillips, Heather Scruggs, David Finch, Jennifer Morey (McMaster), Jennifer Talyor, Amanda Flecter, Gozaim Ogwu