Skip to content

Skip To Keyboard Navigation
Georgia Institute of Technology

School of Psychology

College of Sciences

  • About
    • Chair’s Welcome
    • History of the School
    • Key Contacts
  • People
    • Faculty
    • Emeritus Faculty
    • Graduate Students
    • Staff
  • Research
    • Laboratories
    • Affiliated Centers
    • How to participate
  • Graduate Programs
    • Why Choose Georgia Tech
    • Psychology Graduate Student Council
    • Prospective Students
      • Admission Requirements
      • Graduate Application
      • Financial Aid
      • F.A.Q.
    • Graduate Handbook
    • Programs
      • Cognition & Brain Science
      • Neuroscience
      • Adult Development and Aging
      • Engineering Psychology
      • Industrial/Organizational Psychology
      • Quantitative Psychology
      • Quantitative Biosciences
      • BS/MS in Psychology
    • Graduate Courses
    • Graduate Alumni
  • Undergraduate Programs
    • Programs
    • BS/MS in Psychology
    • Requirements for the major
      • Senior Thesis
      • Checklist
    • Requirements for the Minor
    • Certificates in Psychology
    • Research Options
    • Research Assistantship
    • Admissions
    • Courses by Semester
    • Undergraduate Activities
    • Science and Society Internship Program
  • Resources
    • Funding Resources
      • Foundations & Organizations
      • Proposal Process Updates
    • Forms & Procedures
    • Who To See For What
    • IT Resources
    • Psychology Interlab Grant (PIG)
  • Visit Us
    • How to Find Us
  • Give
Search

Search form

  • You are here:
  • GT Home
  • Home

Paul Verhaeghen

paul.verhaeghen@psych.gatech.edu

Professor of Psychology

404-894-2680

My recent work involves the study of mindfulness as a trait and a state. See my book on the effects of mindfulness on brain, mind, and life. In our research, we're interested in a new, broader definition of mindfulness, which includes self-awareness, self-regulation, as well as self-transcendence. We're particularly interested in how these aspects foster not just personal wellbeing, but can also be of benefit to others, by fostering wisdom, virtue, compassion, and social justice.

Historically, most of the work in our lab has centered around cognitive aging: What happens to people's minds as they grow older? Much of my meta-analytic work boils down to the question of the dimensionality of cognitive aging: Does it all go together when it goes?

Much of our experimental work on aging has focused on cognitive control. Cognitive control concerns dealing with complex tasks in a complex environment, which includes: (a) making sure that only the appropriate stimuli from the environment enter into consciousness; (b) continuously updating the content of working memory; (c) switching between different tasks; (d) coordinating the different actions that need to be performed; and (e) switching back and forth between relevant stimuli. Some of these aspects seem to be more susceptible to aging than others (b, c, and d); some have different effects of speed and accuracy (e).

We also conducted research on working memory per se. We are very interested in working memory dynamics. How (or even when) do people search working memory? Can we distinguish different subsystems in working memory depending on the retrieval dynamics? Are the memory processes in working memory cognitive primitives, or are they subsumed under known mechanisms of attentional control?
A fourth research interest is creativity, more specifically the link between creativity (or, as we like to think of it, mental play), mood disorder, and different types of rumination.

Adult Development and Aging , Cognition & Brain Science , Neuroscience Lab URL: https://sites.google.com/site/verhaeghenlabgatech/ lab name: ReCALL Lab person_type: Faculty Education:

Ph.D. (1994) Psychology University of Leuven, Belgium

Selected Publications:
  • Verhaeghen, P. (2021). Mindfulness as attention training: Meta-analyses on the links between attention performance and mindfulness interventions, long-term meditation practice, and trait mindfulness. Mindfulness, 12, 564-581.
  • Verissimo, J, Verhaeghen, P. Goldman, N., Weinstein, M., & Ullman, M. T. (2021). Aging yields improvements as well as declines across attention and executive functions. Nature Human Behavior.
  • Verhaeghen, P., & Aikman, S. N. (2020). How the mindfulness manifold relates to the five moral foundations, prejudice, and awareness of privilege. Mindfulness, 11, 241-254.
  • Karbach. J., & Verhaeghen, P. (2014). Making working memory work: A meta-analysis of executive control and working memory training in younger and older adults. Psychological Science, 25, 2027-2037.
  • Verhaeghen, P. (2011). Aging and executive control: Reports of a demise greatly exaggerated. Current Directions in Psychological Sciences, 20, 174-180.
  • Faculty
  • Emeritus Faculty
  • Graduate Students
  • Staff
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Plus
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Flickr
Resources

Georgia Tech Resources

  • Offices & Departments
  • News Center
  • Campus Calendar
  • Special Events
  • GreenBuzz
  • Institute Communications
  • Visitor Resources
  • Campus Visits
  • Directions to Campus
  • Visitor Parking Information
  • GTvisitor Wireless Network Information
  • Georgia Tech Global Learning Center
  • Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center
  • Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech
  • Ferst Center for the Arts
  • Robert C. Williams Paper Museum
Map of Georgia Tech - School of Psychology

School of Psychology J.S. Coon Bldg
Georgia Institute of Technology
654 Cherry Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0170
Telephone: 404-894-2680

Georgia Institute of Technology
North Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30332
404.894.2000

  • Directory
  • Employment
  • Emergency Information
  • Enable Accessibility
  • Legal & Privacy Information
  • Human Trafficking Notice
  • Title IX/Sexual Misconduct
  • Hazing Public Disclosures
  • Accessibility
  • Accountability
  • Accreditation
Georgia Institute of Technology

© Georgia Institute of Technology

Login