Faculty

Nash Unsworth , Ph.D. Assistant Professor Cognitive/Experimental Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 2006 Office: Room 522 Ph: (706) 542-8346 Fax: (706) 542-3275 Email: nunswor@uga.edu Visit my Laboratory Webpage

Research Interests

My research combines experimental and differential approaches to cognition in order to examine basic memory and attention processes and their role in higher-order cognition. Specifically, I am interested in individual differences in memory and attention capabilities and their relation to higher-order cognitive processes (such as reasoning). My current work explores two functional characteristics of working memory: the need to actively maintain information in the face of distraction and the need to retrieve information that could not be maintained. It is argued that both functions are needed in a host of cognitive activities, but to differing degrees based on task demands. In addition, I am interested in how discrimination processes at retrieval influence remembering and how individuals differ in those discrimination processes.

Selected Publications

Unsworth, N., Heitz, R.P., & Parks, N.A. (in press). The importance of temporal distinctiveness for forgetting over the short-term. Psychological Science.

Unsworth, N. (2007). Individual differences in working memory capacity and episodic retrieval: Examining the dynamics of delayed and continuous distractor free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 1020-1034.

Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. (2007). On the division of short-term and working memory: An examination of simple and complex spans and their relation to higher-order abilities. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 1038-1066.

Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. (2007). The nature of individual differences in working memory capacity: Active maintenance in primary memory and controlled search from secondary memory. Psychological Review, 14, 104-132.

Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. (2006). A temporal-contextual retrieval account of complex span: An analysis of errors. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 346-362.

Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. (2006). Simple and complex memory spans and their relation to fluid abilities: Evidence from list-length effects. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 68-80.

Unsworth, N., Heitz, R.P., Schrock, J.C., & Engle, R.W. (2005). An automated version of the operation span task. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 498-505.

Unsworth, N., Schrock, J.C., & Engle, R.W. (2004). Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: Individual differences in voluntary saccade control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 1302-1321.

Courses Regularly Taught

Undergraduate

• Cognitive Psychology

Graduate

• Cognitive Psychology