Department of Psychology

Emily Elliott

Assistant Professor

Cognitive Area

228 Audubon Hall,
Department of Psychology,
Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Phone:(225)-578-7460
fax:(225)-578-4125

eelliott@lsu.edu.

Click here to view my VITA.

Research Interests:

My research focus includes the areas of short-term memory and working memory, and also the interaction of attention with memory performance. My interest in short-term memory stems from the close relationship between the items that a person is attending to and the ability to retain these items over short periods of time. To understand the interaction between memory and attention, it is helpful to be able to manipulate carefully what a person is attending to, or purposefully ignoring. In this way, the auditory modality is very useful for study. The direction of one's attention in the visual modality can be easily modified by gaze, or even closing one's eyes. This is not the case in the auditory modality. For this reason, much of my research includes auditory stimuli, which of course are ever-present in the natural environment. Additionally, I study the development of memory in children. I believe that studying children can be a valuable tool for understanding the origins of adult cognition.

Representative Publications:

Elliott, E. M., Bhagat, S. P., & Lynn, S. D. (in press). Can children with (central) auditory processing disorders ignore irrelevant sounds? Research in Developmental Disabilities
Shelton, J. A., Metzger, R. L., & Elliott, E. M. (in press). A group-administered lag task as a measure of working memory. Behavior Research Methods.
Cherry, K. E., Elliott, E. M., & Reese, C. M. (2007). Age and individual differences in working memory: The size judgment span task. Journal of General Psychology, 134, 43-65
Cowan, N., Fristoe, N. M., Elliott, E. M., Brunner, R. P., & Saults, J. S. (2006). Scope of attention, control of attention, and intelligence in children and adults. Memory & Cognition, 34, 1754-1768.
Elliott, E. M., Barrilleaux, K. M., & Cowan, N. (2006). Individual differences in the ability to avoid distracting sounds. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18, 90-108.[Download PDF]
Cowan, N., Elliott, E. M., Saults, J. S., Nugent, L., Bomb, P., & Hismjatullina, A. (2006). Rethinking speed theories of cognitive development: A response speed that correlates with short-term memory but does not affect it. Psychological Science, 17, 67-73.
Elliott, E. M., & Cowan, N. (2005). Individual differences in memory span and in the effects of irrelevant sounds on memory performance: The coherence of the irrelevant sound effect. Memory & Cognition, 33, 664-675.[Download PDF]
Cowan, N., Elliott, E. M., Saults, J. S., Morey, C. C., Mattox, S., & Hismjatullina, A. (2005). On the capacity of attention: Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes. Cognitive Psychology, 51, 42-100.[Download PDF]
Cowan, N., Baddeley, A. D., Elliott, E. M., & Norris, J. (2003). List composition and the word length effect in immediate recall: A comparison of localist and globalist assumptions. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,10, 74-79.
Cowan, N., Towse, J., Hamilton, Z., Saults, S., Elliott, E., Lacey, J., Moreno, M., & Hitch, G. (2003). Children's working-memory processes change with practice: Evidence from a response-timing analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 113-132.
Elliott, E. M. (2002). The irrelevant-speech effect and children: Theoretical implications of developmental change. Memory & Cognition, 30, 478-487.
Cowan, N., Saults, J. S., Elliott, E. M., & Moreno, M. (2002). Deconfounding Serial Recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 153-177.
Elliott, E. M., & Cowan, N. (2001). Habituation to auditory distractors in a cross-modal, color-word interference task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 654-667.
Cowan, N., Nugent, L. D., Elliott, E. M., & Saults, J. S. (2000). Persistence of memory for ignored lists of digits: Areas of developmental constancy and change. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 76, 151-172.
Cowan, N, Nugent, L. D., Elliott, E. M., Ponomarev, I., & Saults, J. S. (1999). The role of attention in the development of short-term memory: Age differences in the verbal span of apprehension. Child Development, 70, 1082-1097.

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