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Candice Morey

Dr Candice Morey

Reader

School of Psychology

Email
MoreyC@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 75375
Campuses
Tower Building, Room 7.10, 70 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

In some ways, memory seems limitless. Unlike a digital storage device which will eventually fill up, there is no apparent limit to how much knowledge we can acquire. In fact, learning is facilliated when we make connections between new information and information we've already learned - it's as if remembering some things leads to remembering others.

Yet remembering novel information is notoriously faulty. Everyone regularly experiences slips where they cannot retrieve the name of person just introduced to them, or forgets where they placed their keys only moments ago, or cannot recall what items they planned to pick up from the market.

I am interested in understanding what limits memory for the immediate past, explaining why these lapses occur so universally, and discovering factors that can help mitigate immediate memory limits. I also advocate for improving the transparency of research so that all of the products of research - from stimuli, to data, to published conclusions -  are maximally available to inform decision-making in academia and beyond. Materials supporting my research projects are available on my Open Science Framework page.

Publication

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

Articles

Conferences

Research

Research topics and related papers

I am currently interested in comparing and contrasting how memory limits apply to verbal versus non-verbal materials. People consistently remember more information from an arbitrary set when the to-be-remembered information is verbal compared to when it is spatial or visual. Verbal information is also less susceptible to interference than visual information, which is fragile, and disrupted by many tasks and materials, even if the distracting tasks do not involve any visual content. I am working on understanding these differences with a view toward explaining how memory and attention are distributed between different kinds of information content.

An important part of my research involves investigating how memory improves during childhood. As they grow, children's memory improves. In some ways, children's memory appears to function similarly to adults' memory. However, there are also differences, particularly in the strategies children use (or don't use) to try to remember novel information.

My colleagues and I are working to discover regularities in performance of working memory tasks in both adults and children (e.g., what sort of distraction consistently leads to forgetting, how much novel material of various sorts can we remember, what sorts of speech or eye movement patterns accompany memory lapses), with a view toward a comprehensive and viable explanation for how new information is recorded and learned.

Funding

2020-2021: Greeno, D. (Fellow), Morey, C.C. (prinicpal mentor), & Morgan, P. (co-mentor). ESRC Post-doctoral fellowship. Applying principles of verbal short-term memory to cyber security research. £102,888.

2020: Undergraduate Research Bursary (for student Emma Chubb), Experimental Psychology Society. £2000.

2019-2020: Morgan, P.L. (PI), Morey, C.C., Macken, W.J., & Jones, D.M. National Cyber Security Centre. Exploring task switching and interruption costs and solutions for cyber security work environments. £99,967. Co-Investigator, 10% FTE.

2019: Morey, C.C., principal investigator, with Vergauwe, E., & von Bastian, C.C., co-investigators. British Academy Small Grant. Memory performance during multi-tasking. Host institution: Cardiff University. £9,983.

2016-2019: Chevalier, N., & Karbach, J., principal investigators. Open Research Area ESRC Grant. Supporting cognitive and academic development in children at risk: Metacognitive executive function training in children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Host institution: University of Edinburgh. £503,810. Co-investigator, 2.66% f.t.e.

2007-2010 (voluntarily shortened to take up full-time position at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen): Morey, C.C., Principal investigator. 1 F32 MH079556-01. NIH National Research Service Award, Postdoctoral Fellowship. Domain-general working memory and cognitive control in the prefrontal cortex. Faculty sponsor: Todd S. Braver, Washington University. $141,318.

2006-2007: Morey, C.C., Principal investigator. 1 F31 MH074205-01A2. NIH National Research Service Award, Pre-doctoral Fellowship. Domain-general storage in working memory. Faculty sponsor: Nelson Cowan, University of Missouri. $37,000.

Research group

Dr. David Greeno

Dr. Tanya Joseph

Ralitsa Kostova

Molly Delooze

Teodor Nikolov

Aoife O'Mahony

Clara Overkott

External research collaborators

Dr. Angela AuBuchon, Boys Town National Research Hospital

Dr. Bonnie Auyeung, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Louise Brown Nicholls, University of Strathclyde

Dr. Nicolas Chevalier, University of Edinburgh

Prof. Nelson Cowan, University of Missouri

Prof. Emily Elliott, Louisiana State University

Prof. Julia Karbach, University Koblenz-Landau

Dr. Evie Vergauwe, University of Geneva

Dr. Claudia von Bastian, Sheffield University

Teaching

I am Undergraduate Lead for the School of Psychology. I deliver undergraduate lectures on research methods and memory. I am also responsible for delivering undergraduate tutorials and practicals on cognitive psychology.

Biography

2007: PhD in Psychology, University of Missouri

2003: Master of Arts in Psychology, University of Missouri

2001: Bachelor of Science in Psychology, magna cum laude, with a minor in Music, Florida State University

Honours and awards

2017 Psychonomic Society Early Career Award Winner

Professional memberships

Academic positions

  • 2017- present: Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University School of Psychology
  • 2013-2017: Chancellor's Fellow / Lecturer, University of Edinburgh Department of Psychology
  • 2008-2013: Rosalind Franklin Fellow / Lecturer, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences
  • 2007-2008: NRSA Post-doctoral Fellow, Washington University - St. Louis Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Committees and reviewing

  • Editor-in-chief, Journal of Cognition
  • Editorial board, Memory & Cognition
  • Scientific committee, European Working Memory Symposium
  • Ad-hoc reviewer, Acta Psychologica, American Psychologist, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, Behavioural and Brain Functions, Behavior Research Methods, Child Development, Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, Cortex, Developmental Science, Experimental Psychology, Frontiers in Perception Science, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Journal of Media Psychology, Journal of Memory and Language, Memory, Memory and Cognition, Nature Human Behaviour, NeuroImage, Neuropsychologia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,  Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, Psychological Review, Psychological Science, PLoS One, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Scientific Reports – Nature, Visual Cognition as well as various funding agencies

Supervisions

Postgraduate research interests

If you are interested in applying for a PhD, or for further information regarding my postgraduate research, please contact me directly (contact details available on the 'Overview' page), or submit a formal application. I supervise projects investigating memory, attention, cognitive control, and their development in children.

Current students

Molly Delooze

Teodor Nikolov

Aoife O'Mahony