People
Director
Sean M. Lane
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology,
Louisiana State UniversityPhone:
Vita:
Dr. Sean Lane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, and Co-Director of the Office of Applied Cognition. Dr. Lane has a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Kent State University. Prior to coming to LSU, he was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at UNLV, a visiting scholar at Princeton University, and worked in the Silicon Valley in the area of Human Factors.
There are two basic themes to my research in the area of cognition. The first theme investigates the monitoring and control (metacognitive) processes involved in learning and memory. My primary research line is motivated by source monitoring theory and examines how witness’s memories are affected by misleading post-event information. My more recent work focuses on understanding the type of information people consider when making memory decisions of this type, and whether the accuracy of these decisions can be improved. A second line of research in this theme concerns the role of monitoring and control processes in tasks where people have little conscious awareness of learning (implicit tasks). Specifically, I have collaborated with Robert Mathews on research designed to examine the factors that facilitate or hinder the acquisition of expertise in these tasks. A second theme involves understanding how cognitive processes are deployed in complex real-world events. This work is motivated by the belief that considering the complexity of real-world cognition can inform our understanding of basic mechanisms while providing needed applications. As a result, my work is conducted in both “in vivo” (naturalistic) and “in vitro” (laboratory) settings (see Dunbar & Blanchette, 2001). The goal of this research is to inform our understanding of basic mechanisms (i.e., how cognitive theories “scale up”) while providing needed applications. This research is represented by my work in eyewitness memory, and by my NSF-funded research on the effect of technology on the practice of medicine. For example, a current research project involves studying how the ability of nurses to prioritize tasks (i.e., executive processing) is facilitated or hindered by new technologies using field studies and laboratory-based simulations. In addition, I have been active in promoting the use of research-based guidelines for collecting eyewitness evidence and am collaborating in this endeavor with faculty from the LSU Law School as well as judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel in Southern Louisiana.
Office of Applied Cognition
Department of Psychology
Louisiana State University
210 Audubon Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
