Christopher Hertzog

	Christopher Hertzog	(404) 894-6774
	Cognitive Aging
	Ph.D. (1979) Psychology (Adult Development and Aging) University of Southern California

Professor of Psychology

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General Interests

I study individual differences in adult cognitive development. I have been interested in age-related declines in basic mechanisms of cognition, memory, and information processing, especially in terms of understanding ‘successful cognitive aging.’ That is, characterizing who declines and who does not, and evaluating possible explanations for the differences.  I have also studied how personality, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors influence cognitive task performance, and how older adults maintain effective functioning even when challenged by age-related changes.
Current Research Areas
• Metacognition, Strategy Use, and Aging (often in collaboration with John Dunlosky, University of North Carolina, Greensboro). We study metacognition in older and younger adults, with special reference to memory monitoring, strategy use, and other control processes operating in episodic memory task performance. New techniques for studying monitoring of learning, retrieval, and performance have been developed (Hertzog & Dunlosky, 2004) and are being used to study accuracy of monitoring (which often appears to be unaffected by aging, even when learning and memory are impaired; Eakin & Hertzog, in press; Hertzog et al., 2002). However, new results from our lab and others suggests older adults may have difficulty accurately predicting items that will be recognized, at least under some circumstances.  My postdocs and graduate students are currently studying judgments of learning and feeling-of-knowing ratings for newly learned materials with associative and item recognition tests in order to understand this phenomenon. We are also studying how knowledge about strategy effectiveness is influenced by experience using those strategies (Dunlosky & Hertzog, 2000; Hertzog et al., 2006), self-reports of strategy use in these tasks, evaluating whether strategy selection is influenced by monitoring learning success and failure, and discovering how to train older adults to use monitoring to improve rates of learning (Dunlosky et al., 2005). This work is currently funded by the National Institute on Aging.
• Development of Automaticity and Strategy Shift in Search/Detection Tasks (in collaboration with Dayna Touron (Appalachian State University), Wendy Rogers, and A. D. Fisk, Georgia Tech). Studies development of automaticity in search/detection tasks. We are particularly interested in individual differences in the development of automaticity, and whether aging affects the development of automaticity. Published papers include Rogers, Hertzog, & Fisk, 2000; Hertzog, Cooper, & Fisk, 1996, and Touron & Hertzog, 2004a, b). The recent work with Touron demonstrates that older adults manifest a delayed shift to a memory retrieval strategy in skilled performance, with a substantial cost to the efficiency of their performance. This delayed shift appears to reflect a lack of confidence by some (but not all) older adults in their ability to effectively rely on memory. We have been able to manipulate older adults’ rate of shift to the memory retrieval strategy in ways that rule out a simple associative deficit as the basis for the delayed retrieval shift, and have determined that often older adults do not appreciate that memory retrieval confers major advantages for efficiency of performance in these tasks. A recent paper (Hertzog, Touron, & Hines, 2006) suggests that age differences in the accuracy of monitoring how quickly one is responding with each strategy may contribute to older adults’ delayed retrieval shift.
• Beliefs about Memory and Aging. My colleagues and I have studied beliefs about how aging affects memory (Hertzog, McGuire, & Lineweaver, 1998; Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998). We have also studied beliefs about one’s own memory functioning and how these beliefs derive from more general beliefs about aging, and what influence they have on cognitive task performance. I have also examined the distinction between beliefs as measured by standard subjective memory questionnaires and beliefs about cognition in context (e.g., Hertzog, Park, Morrell, & Martin, 2000).
• Information Processing Correlates of Intelligence in Adulthood. I have studied adult intellectual development since graduate school (e.g., Hertzog & Schaie, 1986), and continue to be interested in this area. I am especially interested in spatial cognition and relationships of psychometric tests of spatial ability and chronometric tasks measuring the same constructs (e.g. the mental rotation task). Previous research has focused on role of age-related slowing of information processing speed to intelligence (e.g., Hertzog, 1989; Hertzog & Bleckley, 2001; Hertzog, Vernon, & Rypma, 1993). I have also studied individual differences in memory change in adulthood as a function of variables such as reasoning and working memory with colleagues of the Victoria Longitudinal Study (e.g., Hertzog, 2004; Hertzog, Dixon, Hultsch, & MacDonald, 2003).
 • Quantitative Methods for Study Change. Understanding individual differences in cognitive change requires methods for measuring and accounting for changes (Hertzog & Nesselroade, 2003). I am currently involved in studies that evaluate the statistical properties of longitudinal models for change, such as latent growth curve models, principally with scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany (Hertzog, Lindenberger, Ghisletta, & von Oertzen, in press; submitted).
Affiliations
American Psychological Association (Fellow)
American Psychological Society (Charter Fellow)
Cognitive Science Society
Gerontological Society of America (Fellow)
International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development
Psychonomic Society
Society for Applied Research on Memory and Cognition

Selected Publications

 

• Eakin & Hertzog (in press). Release from implicit interference in memory and metamemory: Older adults know that they can’t let go. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.
• Hertzog, C., & Dunlosky, J. (2006). Using visual imagery as a mnemonic for verbal associative learning:  Developmental and individual differences. In T. Vecchi & G. Bottini (Eds.).  Imagery and Spatial Cognition: Methods, Models and Cognitive Assessment. John Benjamins Publishers: Amsterdam and Philadelphia, The Netherlands/USA.
• Dunlosky, J., Baker, J. M. C., Rawson, K. A., & Hertzog, C. (2006). Does aging influence metacomprehension? Effects of processing ease on comprehension judgments. Psychology and Aging, 21, 390-400.
• Hertzog, C., Touron, D. R., & Hines, J. C. (2006). Does a time monitoring deficit contribute to older adults’ delayed shift to retrieval during skill acquisition? Unpublished manuscript.
• Hertzog, C., Lindenberger, U., Ghisletta, P., & Oertzen, T. v.  (2006). Evaluating the power of latent growth curve models to detect individual differences in change. Unpublished manuscript.
• Hertzog, Lindenberger, Ghisletta, & von Oertzen (in press). Psychological Methods.
• Robinson, A. E., Hertzog, C., & Dunlosky, J. (2006).  Aging, encoding fluency, and metacognitive monitoring. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 13, 458-478.
• Stine-Morrow, E. A. L., Miller, L. M. S., & Hertzog, C. (2006). Aging and self-regulated language processing.  Psychological Bulletin, 132, 582-606.
• Dunlosky, J., Hertzog, C., Kennedy, M. R. T., & Thiede, K. W. (2005).  The self-monitoring approach for effective learning.  Cognitive Technology, 10, 4-11.
• Dunlosky, J., Hertzog, C., & Powell-Moman, A. (2005).  The contribution of five mediator-based deficiencies to age-related differences in associative learning.  Developmental Psychology, 41, 389-400.
• Hertzog (2004). Does longitudinal evidence confirm theories of cognitive aging derived from cross-sectional data? In R. A. Dixon, L. Bäckman, & L-G. Nilsson (Eds.), New Frontiers for Cognitive Aging Research (pp. 41-64).  Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
• Touron, D. R., & Hertzog, C. (2004a). Strategy shift affordance and strategy choice in young and older adults. Memory & Cognition, 32, 298-310.
• Touron, D. R., & Hertzog, C. (2004b). Distinguishing age differences in knowledge, strategy use, and confidence during strategic skill acquisition. Psychology and Aging, 19, 452-466.
• Hertzog, C., Dixon, R. A., Hultsch, D. F., & MacDonald, S. W. S. (2003). Latent change models of adult cognition: Are changes in processing speed and working memory associated with changes in episodic memory? Psychology and Aging.
• Hertzog, C., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2003). Assessing psychological change in adulthood: An overview of methodological issues. Psychology and Aging.
• Dunlosky, J., Kubat-Silman, A., & Hertzog, C. (2003). Training metacognitive skills improves older adults’ associative learning. Psychology and Aging, 18, 340-345.
• Hertzog, C., Dunlosky, J., Robinson, A. E., & Kidder, D. P. (2003). Encoding fluency is a cue utilized for judgments about learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 22-34.
• Hertzog, C., Kidder, D. P., Powell-Moman, A., & Dunlosky, J. (2002). Aging and monitoring associative learning: Is monitoring accuracy spared or impaired? Psychology and Aging, 17, 209-225.
• Hertzog, C., & Bleckley, M. K. (2001).  Age differences in the structure of intelligence: Influences of information processing speed.  Intelligence ,29, 191-217.
• Dunlosky, J., & Hertzog, C. (2000). Updating knowledge about strategy effectiveness: A componential analysis of learning about strategy effectiveness from task experience.  Psychology and Aging, 15, 462-474.
• Hertzog, C., Park, D. C., Morrell, R. W., & Martin, M. (2000). Ask and ye shall receive: Behavioral specificity in the accuracy of subjective memory complaints. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 257-275.
• Rogers, W. A., Hertzog, C., & Fisk, A. D. (2000). Age-related differences in associative learning: An individual differences analysis of ability and strategy influences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 359-394.
• Hultsch, D. F., Hertzog, C., Small, B. J., & Dixon, R. A. (1999). Use it or lose it? Engaged life style as a buffer of cognitive decline in aging. Psychology and Aging, 14, 245-263.
• Hertzog, C., McGuire, C. L., & Lineweaver, T. T. (1998). Aging, attributions, perceived control, and strategy use in a free recall task. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 5, 85-106.
• Dunlosky, J., & Hertzog, C. (1998). Aging and deficits in associative memory: What is the role of strategy use? Psychology and Aging, 13, 597-607.
• Hultsch, D.F., Hertzog, C., Dixon, R. A., & Small, B. J. (1998). Memory change in the aged. Cambridge University Press.
• Connor, L.T., Dunlosky, J., & Hertzog, C. (1997). Age-related differences in absolute by not relative metamemory accuracy. Psychology and Aging, 12, 50-71.
• Hertzog, C., Cooper, B.P., & Fisk, A.D. (1996). Aging and individual differences in the development of skilled memory search performance. Psychology and Aging, 11, 497-520.
• Hertzog, C. (1989). The influence of cognitive slowing on age differences in intelligence. Developmental Psychology, 25, 636-651.
• Hertzog, C., & Schaie, K. W. (1986). Stability and change in adult intelligence: 1. Analysis of longitudinal covariance structures. Psychology and Aging, 1, 159-171.

Frequently Taught Courses

PSY 2020 Psychological Statistics
PSY 7020 Survey in Cognitive Aging
PSY 8020 Seminar in Cognitive Aging (topical: e.g., Metacognition, Individual Differences)
PSY 8800 Special Topics in Applied Statistics

Contact Information

Dr. Christopher Hertzog School of Psychology Georgia Institute of Technology 654 Cherry Street Atlanta, GA 30332-0170

Telephone: (404) 894-6774 Fax: (404) 894-8905 E-mail: Office Location: 235 J.S. Coon Bldg. Lab Information: Adult Cognition Lab