Individual remembering
Memories are fundamental to almost everything we do in daily life. Our research examines how memories are encoded, consolidated, and retrieved. What factors influence the accuracy and reliability of individual memories across longer time intervals? What cognitive processes support memory updating and the voluntary forgetting of information that is no longer needed?
Projects:
Directed forgetting after short and prolonged delay: A test of noninhibitory accounts
(2018-2021 – Together with Karl-Heinz Bäuml – Funded by DFG)
Retrieval practice promotes memory performance: The influence of blocked and mixed practice
(2014-2015 – Together with Henry L. Roediger III – Funded by DAAD)
Social remembering
Social interactions play a pivotal role in shaping our memories. We examine social influences on memory, including the ways in which memories become shared and are co-constructed in social contexts. How is information transmitted in smaller social groups, and how is this process affected by fundamental group characteristics such as interpersonal relationships?
Projects:
How shared remembering affects memory
(2023-2026 – Funded by DFG)
Collective remembering
How do large groups of people reach a shared representation of the past? The term collective memory can refer to a relatively stable body of knowledge about the past that is slow to change. Remembering at the collective level can however also be conceptualized as a process and a constant negotiation about how the past should be remembered. We mostly use survey studies to uncover cognitive and socio-cultural factors that may shape collective memory representations.
Projects:
Past, present, future: Changes in collective remembering across time and two age groups
(2021-2024 – Together with Sharda Umanath & Amy Corning – Funded by the Collective Memory Collaborative Grant / James S. McDonnell Foundation)
Transnational flashbulb memories
(2022-2025 – Together with Astrid Erll, William Hirst, & Piotr Szpunar – Funded by the Collective Memory Collaborative Grant / James S. McDonnell Foundation)