Research Interests

The long-term objective of my research is to gain a greater understanding of older adults’ sensitivity to environmental contingencies, including their ability to acquire and retrieve contingency knowledge and their ability to use this knowledge for judgment and prediction. My current research program addresses this objective in several ways. First, it seeks to integrate theories from cognitive aging and contingency judgment. For example, we are conducting studies in my laboratory that address how age-related changes in working memory affect the learning and retrieval processes that are necessary for the acquisition and use of contingency knowledge. Second, my research program seeks to provide a comprehensive and systematic assessment of older adults’ contingency learning and judgment ability. We are therefore obtaining both descriptive information on how older adults' contingency learning and judgment differs from that of young adults as well as explanatory information on how age-related changes in basic memory processes contribute to this difference. We are also examining age differences in both causal and non-causal contingency learning and judgment using a variety of problem scenarios and contingency values.

Courses taught

Undergraduate:

• PSY 100 - Introductory Psychology
• PSY 405 - Cognitive Psychology
• PSY 410 - Psychology of Learning

Graduate:

• PSY 500 - Trends and Scientific Approaches in Psychological Thinking: Cognitive Neuroscience
• PSY 511 - Psychology of Learning
• PSY 523 - Advanced Topics in Cognition

Links

• The Conclusive Result: A Distinguished Professor
  (an article on Dr. Mutter at WKU's online magazine, 'Echo')
  

Update Profile