Research Interests for David C Rubin

Research Interests: Cognition, Autobiographical Memory, Aging

My main research interest has been in long-term memory, especially for complex (or "real-world") stimuli. This work includes the study of autobiographical memory and oral traditions, as well as prose. I have also studied memory as it is more commonly done in experimental psychology laboratories using lists. In addition to this purely behavioral research, which I plan to continue, I work on memory in clinical populations with the aid of a National Institute of Mental Health grant to study PTSD and on the underlying neural basis of memory the aid of a National Institute of Aging grant to study autobiographical memory using fMRI.

Representative Publications
  1. D.C. Rubin, Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes (1995), New York; Oxford University Press (Awarded the American Association of Publishers' Best New Professional/Scholarly Book in Psychology for 1995 and William James Award from American Psychological Association. Paperback edition, 1997.).
  2. Remembering our past: Studies in autobiographical memory, edited by Rubin, D.C. (1996), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Paperback edition.).
  3. Cognitive Methods and their Application to Clinical Research, edited by Wenzel, A. & Rubin, D.C. (2005), Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association Press (Amy Wenzel did her honors thesis with me. She is now a clinical psychologist and assistant professor.).
  4. Rubin, D.C. & Berntsen, D., & Bohni, M.K., A memory-based model of posttraumatic stress disorder: Evaluating basic assumptions underlying the PTSD diagnosis, Psychological Review no. 115 (2008), pp. 985-1011.
  5. D.C. Rubin, Boals, A., & Berntsen, D., Memory in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Properties of voluntary and involuntary, traumatic and non-traumatic autobiographical memories in people with and without PTSD symptoms, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General no. 137 (2008), pp. 591-614.
  6. Rubin, D. C., The Basic-Systems Model of Episodic Memory, Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 1 (2006), pp. 277-311.
  7. Daselaar, S.M., Rice, H.J., Greenberg, D.L., Cabeza, R., LaBar, K.S., & Rubin, D.C., The spatiotemporal dynamics of autobiographical memory: Neural correlates of recall, emotional intensity, and reliving, Cerebral Cortex no. 18 (2008), pp. 217-229.
  8. Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D.C., The centrality of event scale: A measure of integrating a trauma into one’s identity and its relation to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 44 (2006), pp. 219-231.
  9. Talarico, J.M. & Rubin, D.C., Confidence, not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories, Psychological Science, vol. 14 (2003), pp. 455-461.
  10. Rubin, D.C. & Greenberg, D.L., Visual memory deficit amnesia: A distinct amnesic presentation and etiology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 95 (1998), pp. 5413-5416.
  11. Skotko, B.G., Rubin, D.C., & Tupler, L.A., H.M.’s Personal Crossword Puzzles: Understanding Memory and Language, Memory, vol. 16 (2008), pp. 89-96.