Abstract

We have recently developed a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and aging on explicit and implicit memory.

A brief biography:

I was an undergraduate in the Cambridge Department and then did my PhD there (under Tony Dickinson), before moving across town to the MRC Applied Psychology Unit (now Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit) where I had my first post-doc. I had another post-doc position for a year at the University of California, San Diego, and then moved to UCL in 1993 where I’ve been ever since. Between 1995-2010 I was a research fellow in the ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution at UCL . I was head of the UCL psychology department and am now head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences. I won the Experimental Psychology Society’s prize for young researchers in 1994 and won this year’s EPS Mid-Career Award. My books include Straight Choices: The Psychology of Decision Making (2007, with Ben Newell and David Lagnado).