Memory for Real People

这位研究者将对人的信息记忆和社会范畴的构建进行实证和理论研究。第一组研究调查了记忆在日常社会生活中所起的作用，并探索了人们通过公共媒体对他们的熟人和公众人物的记忆的内容和组织。两个主要问题推动了这项研究计划：功能如何决定记忆的内容和结构？激起情绪的个体的记忆与中性的、非唤起的个体的记忆有什么不同？第二组研究在受控的实验室“熟悉”任务中进行，旨在研究社会目标对受试者在实验室互动中遇到的其他人的记忆的影响。这些研究背后的主要动机是测试先前实验室人的记忆研究结果在与现实人的社会互动中的普遍性。第三组研究涉及一个单独的主题，即为新的社会群体(例如，男护士、女机械师等)创建关联类别。这里的指导问题涉及到一种理论的发展，该理论预测两个“成分”类别将以何种方式结合起来产生一个新的连词类别。这位首席调查员是众所周知的一位坚强而多产的学者。

This investigator will conduct empirical and theoretical research on memory for information about people and the construction of social categories. The first set of studies surveys the functions that memory serves in everyday social life and explores the contents and organization of peoples' memories for their acquaintances and for public figures they "meet" through public media. Two primary questions motivate the research plan: How does function determine memory contents and structure? Do memories of emotion-provoking individuals differ from those of neutral, non-evocative individuals? A second set of studies occurs in controlled, laboratory "get acquainted" tasks and is designed to study the effects of social goals on subjects" memories of other people they encounter in laboratory interactions. The primary motivation underlying these studies is to test the generality of results from previous laboratory person memory research in social interactions with actual people. A third set of studies is concerned with a separate topic, the creation of conjunction categories for novel social groups (e.g., male nurses, female mechanics, etc.). The guiding question here concerns the development of a theory to predict the manner in which two "ingredient" categories will be combined to yield a new conjunction category. The Principal Investigator is well known as a strong and productive scholar.