Anderson Smith

Professor of Psychology Regents Professor of Psychology and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and Academic Affairs

Education

Ph.D. (1970) Experimental Psychology University of Virginia

About

My research interests focus on adult age differences in memory. I want to know what about memory changes as we grow older and what are the causes for those changes. Recently, I have been interested in how context helps, or hurts, younger and older adults with episodic recall. Our research is showing that context can be either facilitative or distracting, and seems to affect memory regardless of age. Older people, however, are not as influenced by contextual factors when the context is not well-integrated with the to-be-remembered information. Other research is examining how cognitive mechanisms may be responsible for much of the age-related variance in memory performance across a variety of tasks. I am also interested in non-human primate models of memory aging.

Selected Publications

• Smith, A. D. (2006).  Memory and aging.  In J. E. Birren (Ed.).  Encyclopedia of Gerontology.  Oxford:  Elsevier.
• McCabe, D. P., Presmanes, A. G., Robertson, C. L., & Smith, A. D.  (2005)  Item-specific processing reduces false memories.  Psychological Bulletin and Review, 11, 1074-1079
• Anderson, U. S., Stoinski, T.S., Bloomsmith, M. A., Marr, M. J., Smith, A. D., & Maple, T. L. (2005).  Relative numerousness judgment and summation in young and old western lowland gorillas.  Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119, 285-295.  
• McCabe, D. P., Robertson, C. L., & Smith, A.D.  (2005).  Age differences in Stroop interference in working memory,  Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology,  27,  633-644.