Paul Verhaeghen

	Paul Verhaeghen	(404) 894-0963
	Experimental
	Ph.D. (1994) Psychology University of Leuven, Belgium

Associate Professor of Psychology

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Most of the work in my lab centers around cognitive aging: What happens to people's minds as they grow older? Our claim is that there are predictable lines along which people age, which we think are a function of at least two things: (a) whether the task is verbal or visuo-spatial, and (b) whether the task involves a high need for cognitive control in working memory or not.

Our current experimental work focuses on the latter part: the cognitive control hypothesis. Cognitive control concerns dealing with complex tasks in a complex environment, which includes: (a) making sure that only the appropriate stimuli from the environment enter into consciousness; (b) continuously updating the content of working memory ; (c) switching between different tasks; (d) coordinating the different actions that need to be performed; and (e) switching back and forth between relevant stimuli. Some of these aspects seem to be more susceptible to aging than others (b, c, and d); some have different effects of speed and accuracy (e).

This work has led to some forays into working memory theory. We are very interested in working memory dynamics. How (or even when) do people search working memory? Can we distinguish different subsystems in working memory depending on the retrieval dynamics? Are the memory processes in working memory cognitive primitives, or are they subsumed under known mechanisms of attentional control?

 

Affiliations
American Psychological Association

 

Selected Publications

• Verhaeghen, P., & Salthouse, T. A. (1997). Meta-analyses of age-cognition relations in adulthood: Estimates of linear and non-linear age effects and structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 231-249.
• Verhaeghen, P., & Cerella, J. (2002). Aging, executive control, and attention: A review of meta-analyses. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 26, 849-857.
• Basak, C., & Verhaeghen, P. (2003). Subitizing speed, subitizing range, counting speed, the Stroop effect, and aging: Capacity differences, speed equivalence. Psychology and Aging, 18, 240-249.
• Verhaeghen, P., Borchelt, M., & Smith, J. (2003). The relation between cardiovascular and metabolic disease and cognition in very old age: Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from the Berlin Aging Study. Health Psychology, 22, 559–569.
• Verhaeghen, P., Steitz, D. W., Sliwinski, M. J., & Cerella, J. (2003). Aging and dual-task performance: A meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging, 18, 443-460.
• Verhaeghen, P., Cerella, J, & Basak, C. (2004). A working memory workout: How to change to size of the focus of attention from one to four in ten hours or less. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 1322-1337.
• Verhaeghen, P., & Basak, C. (2005). Aging and switching of the focus of attention in working memory: Results from a modified N-Back task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (A), 58, 134-154.
• Bopp, K. L., & Verhaeghen, P. (2005). Aging and verbal memory span: A meta-analysis. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 60B, 223-233.
• Verhaeghen, P., Cerella, J, & Basak, C. (2006). Aging, task complexity, and efficiency modes: The influence of working memory involvement on age differences in response times for verbal and visuospatial tasks. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 13, 254-280.
• Zhang, Y., Han, B., Verhaeghen, P., & Nilsson, L-G. (in press). Executive functioning in older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment: MCI has effects on planning, but not on inhibition. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition.
• Bopp, K. L., & Verhaeghen, P. (in press). Age-related differences in executive control processes in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory: Storage, transformation, supervision, and coordination. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.
• Verhaeghen, P., Cerella, J., Basak, C., Bopp, K. L., Zhang, Y., & Hoyer, W. J. (in press). The ins and outs of working memory: Dynamic processes associated with focus switching and search. Osaka, N., Logie, R. & D’Esposito, M. (eds.). Working Memory: Behavioural & Neural Correlates, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Contact Information

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

Telephone: (404) 894-0963 Fax: (404) 894-8905 E-mail: Office Location: 126 J.S. Coon Bldg.