Research Interests for Jennifer M Talarico

Faculty Mentor: Rubin

Research Interests:
My research interests center around autobiographical memory, but involve three distinct areas. I am interested in how emotion affects the content and phenomenology of autobiographical memories, how what we remember is influenced by how our memories are brought to mind, and how the ecological validity of laboratory tasks and the experimental control of real-world stimuli can be enhanced to improve our understanding of autobiographical memory. For example, I have investigated how memories are unconsciously cued by the surrounding environment and how internal cognitive processes can cue memory, what characteristics of real-life events predict greater free recall occurrence and accuracy, and how emotional valence and intensity affect the properties of normative autobiographical memories as well as how emotion affects confidence and accuracy of memories for unexpected, emotional events, so-called "flashbulb" memories. In the past, I have also been involved in studies of cue efficacy in survey methodology.