Research

Hasher, Lynn Dr.

Dr. Lynn Hasher

Professor of Psychology and Marketing University of Toronto

Senior Scientist Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre

Research Focus

The work in my laboratory continues to focus on inhibitory control over the contents of working memory - or over momentary consciousness. Most recently we have shown that classic measures of working memory do not measure how much information can be held onto. Rather they measure the amount of task-relevant information that is held. People with small working memory spans tend to continue to deal with no longer relevant information while people with large working memory spans focus only on the currently relevant information. Older adults' spans tend to be reduced in size, relative to that of younger adults' spans, but that reduction is because older adults continue to consider no longer relevant information, while younger adults do not. The theory that guides this work is published in a chapter in the Attention and Performance volume (2000).

Other work focuses on the degree to which performance, particularly that of older adults' is impacted by the time at which they are tested. We continue to show that on many tasks (e.g., including span tasks, attention tasks, memory tasks and some neuropsychological tests), the performance of older adults is far better at their optimal time (usually the morning) than it is at their nonoptimal time (later in the day). We attribute this to the operation of circadian arousal patterns that impact on inhibitory control, but not on excitatory control.

Education

1971: USPHS Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology (cognitive development), University of California, Berkeley
1970: Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
1966: A.B., Smith College Northampton, Massachusetts

Academic Appointments

2002–2005: Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
2000–Present: Professor of Psychology and Marketing, University of Toronto
2000–Present: Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre

Reviewership

Consulting

1979–2004: American Journal of Psychology (Consulting Editor )
1985–1995: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Consulting Editor )
2002–2004: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Consulting Editor )
1979–1981: Developmental Psychology (Consulting Editor )
1988–2004: Memory and Cognition (Consulting Editor reappointed 1989, 1993, 1995, 1997)
1992–1995: Journal of Gerontology (Consulting Editor )
1993–1994: Journal Consumer Research (Consulting Editor )

Committee

2010: Psychology Department, Temple University (Chair: Research, Colloquium, and Human Subjects Committee Member: Executive Committee of Experimental Division and Department, Promotion and Tenure Committee. Director: Honor's Program )
2010: College and University Service, Temple University (Member: Research and Study Leaves Committee, Merit and Inequities Committee, Biomedical Sciences Research Support Grant Advisory Committee, Tenure Committee, Dean's Ad hoc Committee on Research, Graduate Board, Provost's Task Force on Excellence )
2010: Psychology Department, Duke University (Member: Space committee (1987), Executive Committee (1987-1990, 1996-1997), Coordinator for Cognitive Psychology (1987-1990, 1994- ) Director: Graduate Studies (1988-1990) Co-Coordinator: Psychology Department Subject Pool (1991-1996, 1997-) Co-Organizer: Triangle Area Cognitive Gerontology Group (1992- present) Co-Organizer: Duke-UNC Cognition Group (1995- ) )
2010: University Service, Duke University (Member: Women's Studies Program Steering Committee (1986-1989) Provost's Advisory Committee on Appointments, Promotion and Tenure (1988-1991) Executive Committee of the Graduate School (1988-1991) Task Force, Center for Youth (1990-1991) Arts and Sciences Long Range Planning Committee (1992) Women's Network Executive Committee (1991-1992) Arts & Sciences Council (1992-1993) Arts & Sciences Council Executive Committee (1992-1993) Research Policy Committee (1991- 1995) Faculty Scholars Committee (1991- 1995) Arts & Sciences Research Awards Committee (1993- ) Ad hoc Committee to evaluate Dean Richard White, Chair (1994) Provost’s Task Force on Cognitive Neuroscience (1995-1998) Mentor:Dana Foundation Scholar. Summer, 1990, 1991 Academic Senate, Faculty Compensation Committee (1996- ) Chair, Ad-hoc promotion committee, Department of Cultural Anthropology (1998) )
2010: Department, Faculty and University Service, University of Toronto (Ebbinghaus Empire organizer or coorganizer, 2000- SGS Dean’s representative on tenure committees 2007 Search committee, Chair UTSC Psychology Chair Member, tenure review committee, Rotman School of Management Chair, Psychology Department 2002-2005 Department Executive Committee, 2000-2002 Various search committees Various tenure and promotions committees Progress Through Ranks committee, 1999-2002 Various Faculty of Arts and Science committees, including Planning, Graduate Committee, AIF committee, Hiring committee (for assistant dean of planning), Senior Salaries. Provost’s committee for Dean of Faculty of Arts and Science search committee. )

Editorial Board

1979–Present: American Journal of Psychology (Consulting editor)
2004–Present: Psychology and Aging (Consulting editor)
1985–1995: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Consulting editor)
2002–2005: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Consulting editor)
1979–1981: Developmental Psychology (Consulting editor)
1988–2010: Memory and Cognition (Consulting editor (reappointed 1989, 1993, 1995, 1997))
1992–1995: Journal of Gerontology (Consulting editor)
1993–1994: Journal of Consumer Research (Consulting editor)
2010: (Occasional reviewer for: Science, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Child Development, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Science, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, National Science Foundation, National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Journal of Gerontology, Experimental Aging Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Personality Process and Individual Differences, Memory and Cognition, Psychiatry Research, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Developmental Review, Journal of Personality, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Psychological Science, Memory, MONTS Program (NSF), North Dakota State Research Foundation, British Journal of Psychology, Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, Science.)

Distinctions and Awards

2010: A.B., magna cum laude, Smith College
2010: Fellow, American Psychological Society
2010: Fellow, American Psychological Association, Divisions 1, 3, 20
2007: MERIT Award , National Institutes of Health , 1997- 2007
2006: Fellow, Massey College
2005: William James speaker, American Psychological Society
2005: Member, McDonnell Foundation Panel on Human Memory
2003: Member - elected, Memory Disorders Research Society
1996: Distinguished Professional Contribution to Knowledge Award, American Psychological Association
1996: Board of Governors, Psychonomic Society , 1990-1996
1996: , James McKeen Cattell Fellowship, 1995-1996
1995: Fellow, Society of Experimental Psychologists Elected
1995: Chair, Board of Governors, Psychonomic Society, 1994-1995
1987: Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1986-1987
1966: Society of the Sigma XI Elected, Smith College

Research Projects

External

2003–2007: Investigation of Cognitive Processing in Older Adults Using Eye Movement Monitoring
Collaborators: J.D. Ryan
Sponsors: CIHR, 240,000
2002–2007:
Collaborators: Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University
Sponsors: National Institute on Aging (NIH MERIT Award) - Renewed, 417,058 (USD)

Year 1 = $417,058 US (Hasher's portion $207,857 US or $334,421 CAN)

more Academic Appointments

1999-2000	Visiting Scientist, Rotman Institute, Baycrest Hospital
1999-2000	University of Toronto Visiting Professor of Psychology and Marketing
1995-1996	Visiting Scientist, Rotman Institute, Baycrest Hospital University of Toronto Visiting Professor of Psychology, Marketing, and Education at the Ontario Institute for the Study of Education
1991-2000	Professor of Business, Fuqua School, Duke University.
1986-2000	Professor of Psychology, Duke University
1986	Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley
1981-1986	Professor of Psychology, Temple University
1976-1981	Associate Professor of Psychology, Temple University
1972-1976	Assistant Professor of Psychology, Temple University
1971-1972	Assistant Professor of Psychology, Carleton University
1970-1971	Postdoctoral Fellow. (Cognitive development). University of California, Berkeley. Sponsors: Professors P. Mussen and J. Langer.
1970-1971	Research Associate. Institute of Human Learning, University of California, Berkeley.
1966-1969	Research Assistant. To Leo Postman, University of California, Berkeley.
1965-1966	Research Assistant. To Barbara Musgrave, Smith College.

Teaching Experience

Introductory level courses: Experimental Methods
Upper level undergraduate courses: cognition, memory, development cognitive development and research methods, cognitive gerontology, aging and memory
Director of Honors Program, Temple University, 1976-1977
Graduate level courses: Seminars in cognition, human learning and memory, development of memory, spatial cognition, discourse comprehension, attention, cognitive gerontology, social cognition, aging and cognition, inhibitory regulation of cognition
Research Supervision: For undergraduates, high school students, Ph.D candidates in Psychology and in Business, post doctoral fellows

Administration Experience

Chair, Department of Psychology 2002-2005, University of Toronto
Director Graduate Studies, 1988-1991, Duke University

more Research Projects

National Institute on Aging. 1997-2002 (NIH MERIT Award). Year 1 = $252,653. Aging, inhibition, and the contents of working memory. (Co-principal investigator with Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University; Total grant, for five years is $1,616,611).

National Institute on Aging. 1995-2000. Year 1 = 179,259. Optimal time of day, aging and inhibitory control. (Total award is 1,282,577, direct and indirect).

James McKeen Cattell Fellowship. Sabbatical award. 1995-1996.

National Institute on Aging. 1992-1997. Year 1 = $195,234. Aging, inhibition, and the contents of working memory. (Co-principal investigator with Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University; total grant is $847,373 direct and indirect.)

National Institute on Aging. 1992. $22,000. Aging, inhibition, and the contents of working memory. Administrative supplement.

National Institutes of Health Small Instrumentation Grant. 1991. Computer equipment. ($10,500).
National Institute on Aging. 1989-1992. $118,703. Aging, inhibition and the contents of working memory.(Co-principal investigator with Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University. Total grant is $388,607, direct costs. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1986-1987

National Institute on Aging. 1985-1988. $189,600. Aging, working memory capacity, and discourse processing. (Co-principal investigator Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University. Total grant is $313,000).

U. S. Army Institute of the Behavioral and Social Sciences. 1982-1985. $68,200. Frequency monitoring: A methodology for assessing the organization of information. (Co-principal investigator Howard S. Hock, Florida Atlantic University).
National Institutes of Mental Health. 1979-1982. $118,000. Automatic and effortful processes in memory. (Co-principal investigator, Rose T. Zacks, Michigan State University National Institutes of Mental Health. 1975-1976. $5000. Reconstructive and reproductive memory processes (MH 27755).

Pickering Foundation. 1971-1972. $3000. The development of memory.

more Research Groups

Sr. Kathryn A. Miller. (1976). Memory reactivation in children: The importance of instructions. (Temple University)

Frances Wren. (1977). Imagery effects in free recall. (Temple University)

Mary S. Attig. (1981). An investigation of the effects of experimental and subject variables on automatic and effortful memory processing in young and elderly adults. (Temple University)

Joseph Alba. (1981). The representational nature of inferences. (Temple University)

Karen C. Rose. (1986). Spatial relationships, intention and the encoding of location. (Temple University)

Mitchell S. Rosen. (1986). An experimental investigation of the relationship between anxiety, intelligence and memory using a limited capacity model. (Temple University)

Bonnie Doren. (1987). Remembering when: Critical factors in the processing of temporal order information. (Temple University)

Verneda Hamm. (1988). Aging and the formation of inferences. (Temple University)

Ellen S. Stoltzfus. (1992). Aging and breadth of availability during language processing. (Duke University)

Susan Lisa Connelly. (1992). Investigations of the relationship between aging and suppression of spatial location. (Duke University)

Cynthia P. May. (1995, Duke University). Inhibitory control and Optimal Time of Day.

Michael Kane. (1995, Duke University). Mechanisms of forgetting.

Michelle Carlson. (1995, Duke University). Attentional deficits and mild head injury.

Tamara Rahhal. (1997, Duke University). It’s not all downhill: Age differences in explicit memory can be eliminated by instructions.

Cindy Lustig. (2001, Duke University). ) Interference in Implicit Memory.

Sunghan Kim. (2002, Duke University). Irrationality, Aging and Decision Making.

Simay Ikier (2005, University of Toronto). Automatic and Controlled Interference in Younger and Older adults.

Masters Theses Directed

Bart Rypma. (1989). Aging and inhibition. (Duke University)
Gillian Rowe (2004). Visuospatial Working memory (University of Toronto)
Ruthann Thomas (2004). Memory for Distraction (University of Toronto)
Constanze Hahn (2006). Circadian effects on cognitive performance of children (University of Toronto)

Current Graduate Students

Gillian Rowe (completion date: 2008)
RuthAnn Thomas (completeion date: 2008)
Karl Healey
Karen Campbell

Contact

Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
100 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 3G3 Canada

Phone: 416 978 7620
Fax: 416 978 4811
Email: hasher@psych.utoronto.ca
__________________________
Rotman Research Institute
Baycrest
3560 Bathurst Street, 948
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M6A 2E1 Phone: 416 785 2500 x2767 Email: hasher

psych.utoronto.ca Fax: 416 785 2862

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3560 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M6A 2E1
Phone: (416) 785-2500

Baycrest is an academic health sciences centre fully affiliated with the University of Toronto

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