Research Interests for Elizabeth J. Marsh

My research focuses on understanding learning and memory, and the processes that make memory accurate in some cases and erroneous in others. One interest is how people acquire and update their knowledge bases. Of interest are the conditions that promote learning and long-term retention of knowledge, the mechanisms through which errors enter the knowledge base, the correction of misconceptions, and the phenomenology of knowledge representations. These interests coincide with the goals of educators, meaning that this work has implications for educational practice. A second interest involves remembering the personal past. Of interest is how people retrieve and use memories in social contexts, and the memorial consequences of such behavior. The ways memories are recalled in everyday situations typically differ from how recall is studied in the lab, and a complete understanding of memory must encompass how memory is actually used. My training was in cognitive psychology, with an emphasis on behavioral experiments. While much of my work focuses on memory in young adults, new research is extending this work to young children and older adults, to capture a lifespan perspective on remembering.

Keywords:

Aging, Education, Illusions, Imagination, Knowledge, Learning, Memory, Mental Processes, Writing

Representative Publications   (search)

1. Marsh, EJ; Edelman, G; Bower, GH, Demonstrations of a generation effect in context memory., Memory & cognition, vol. 29 no. 6 (September, 2001), pp. 798-805 [doi] [abs].
2. Marsh, EJ; Meade, ML; Roediger, HL, Learning facts from fiction, Journal of Memory and Language, vol. 49 no. 4 (January, 2003), pp. 519-536, Elsevier BV [doi] [abs].
3. Marsh, EJ; Dolan, PO; Balota, DA; Roediger, HL, Part-set cuing effects in younger and older adults., Psychology and aging, vol. 19 no. 1 (March, 2004), pp. 134-144 [15065937], [doi] [abs].
4. Roediger, HL; Marsh, EJ, The positive and negative consequences of multiple-choice testing., Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, vol. 31 no. 5 (September, 2005), pp. 1155-1159 [doi] [abs].
5. Marsh, EJ; Fazio, LK, Learning errors from fiction: difficulties in reducing reliance on fictional stories., Memory & cognition, vol. 34 no. 5 (July, 2006), pp. 1140-1149 [17128612], [doi] [abs].
6. Marsh, EJ; Roediger, HL; Bjork, RA; Bjork, EL, The memorial consequences of multiple-choice testing., Psychonomic bulletin & review, vol. 14 no. 2 (April, 2007), pp. 194-199 [17694900], [doi] [abs].
7. Marsh, EJ; Dolan, PO, Test-induced priming of false memories., Psychonomic bulletin & review, vol. 14 no. 3 (June, 2007), pp. 479-483 [17874592], [doi] [abs].
8. Marsh, EJ, Retelling is not the same as recalling: Implications for memory, Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 16 no. 1 (February, 2007), pp. 16-20, SAGE Publications [doi] [abs].