Wilma Koutstaal
Psychology

     Human beings often show surprisingly large fluctuations in how readily and accurately they can “retrieve” what they know.  Such fluctuations influence how flexibly we can use knowledge to inform our judgments, decisions, and actions.  Dr. Koutstaal’s research focuses on factors that affect how we gain access to, or awareness of, what we know and remember, and the accuracy and confidence associated with such access.  One current focus of research concerns the specificity of the representations that support memory and judgment.  We can remember events with differing levels of detail, recalling information in a highly specific and detailed manner, or in a more general, meaning-based, conceptual, or “gist-like” manner.  Under what conditions do we rely on each of these types of information?  Do individuals with memory deficits such as healthy older adults or global amnesics rely more on one or the other of these types of information, or are both forms equally impaired?  Another, more recent, focus is on the level of confidence associated with decisions that we make in various domains, such as perceptual and memory judgments, and complex classifications.  What types of information support feelings of confidence?  What are the neuroanatomical correlates of the assessment of, and experience of, feelings of confidence?  How is the ability to appropriately align confidence with actual performance in cognitive and more complex judgments affected by various situational and task demands? 

• Koutstaal, W. (2003).  Older adults encode––but do not always use––perceptual details:  Intentional versus unintentional effects of detail on memory judgments.  Psychological Science, 14, 189–193. 
  
  
• Koutstaal, W., Reddy, C., Jackson, E. M., Prince, S., Cendan, D. L., & Schacter, D. L. (2003).  False recognition of abstract versus common objects  in older and younger adults:  Testing the semantic categorization account.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 499–510. 
  
  
• Fu, T., Koutstaal, W., Fu, C. H. Y., Poon, L. & Cleare, A. J. (in press).  Depression, confidence, and decision:  Evidence against depressive realism.  Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment.

<Back to Mentors 2008