Graduate Student
My broad research focus is in attention, memory, and individual differences. More specifically, I am currently interested in what cognitive mechanisms drive performance in complex working memory span tasks and their shared variability with measures of higher-order cognition (such as fluid intelligence). To this end, my work has focused on both correlational and quasi-experimental designs using high and low working memory capacity individuals in a variety of tasks. For instance, my current projects are aimed at exploring cue-dependent retrieval in complex span tasks and individual differences in memory search. Both the correlational and quasi-experimental methods attempt to determine when individual differences in working memory capacity are important and how these differences are related to higher-order cognition. In my spare time, I am an avid whitewater kayaker, mountaineer, and backcountry skier.
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Publications
Unsworth, N., Heitz, R.P., & Engle, R.W.
(2005). Working memory capacity in hot and cold cognition. In R.W.
Engle, G. Sedek, U. Hecker, & D.N. McIntosh (Eds.) Cognitive limitations in
aging and psychopathology (pp. 19-43). NY:
Oxford
University
Press.
Heitz, R. P., Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. (2005). Working
memory capacity, attentional control, and fluid intelligence. In O. Wilhelm &
R.W. Engle (Eds.) Handbook of understanding and measuring intelligence
(pp. 61-78). London: Sage Publications.
Unsworth, N., & Engle, R. W. (2005a). Working memory capacity and
fluid abilities: Examining the correlation between Operation Span and Raven.
Intelligence, 33, 67-81.
Unsworth, N., & Engle, R. W. (2005b). Individual differences in
working memory capacity and learning: Evidence from the serial reaction time
task. Memory & Cognition, 33, 213-220.
Unsworth, N., Schrock, J. C., & Engle, R. W. (2004). Working memory
capacity and the antisaccade task: Individual differences in voluntary saccade
control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, &
Cognition, 30, 1302-1321.