As mentioned in the last post, the Psychonomic Society launched a new program, a Science Communication internship for graduate students to gain experience writing about scientific findings for the general public. Two interns, Kelly Cotton and Raunak Pillai (Raunak’s interview is here), were selected for the first term that will last over the next six months. During this time, they will be part of our Digital Content team (currently comprised of me, the Digital Content Editor, and many Digital Associate Editors) and will write many posts that cover research conducted by our members and published in our seven journals.

In the interview below, I asked Kelly (pictured below) a series of questions to get to know her better. You’ll learn about her research on working and long-term memory, her thoughts on big questions in cognitive science, and meet Freddie. You can also follow her on Twitter @kllycttn.

Without further ado, here’s Kelly!

What’s your area of research?

I study working memory and long-term memory, and I am mostly interested in how those functions interact. Particularly, I study how the processing that occurs while information is held in working memory affects the long-term retention of that information. We often encounter things we want to remember in very busy environments for only short amounts of time, but we can still remember a lot of details even after a long time. I’m also interested in what these processes look like in different people and situations and if we can target specific functions to help improve overall memory performance.

One of the overarching themes of my research regards the initial processing that occurs while information is in working memory and its relation to how well that information is remembered later. A recent Psychonomic Bulletin & Review paper that I wrote with my advisor Dr. Tim Ricker looked at how two conceptually similar but historically distinct processes, both referred to as “consolidation”, have been discussed in the working memory and long-term memory fields. We focused on the similarities and differences of these consolidation processes and questioned if they really are distinct processes. We also talked about how these two processes have been studied in clinical populations (like in people with multiple sclerosis), and how we might design targeted interventions to affect consolidation, and ultimately improve memory.

What’s the most exciting concept in cognitive science?

I may be biased, but I really think memory is the most exciting concept in cognitive science. Many factors can affect how we store and retrieve memories, and memory itself is paradoxically fragile but long-lasting. A memory might change over time, but we can still remember things from long ago. Memory, and our understanding of it, also has hugely important implications for many different areas outside of academia, like in education or the justice system.

What’s the most critical unsolved challenge or unanswered question for cognitive scientists?

I think the broad applicability of basic in-lab findings is critical to consider for cognitive scientists. Controlled experimental settings with specific populations can produce important findings, but I’ve been thinking more and more recently about the “so what” of my own research. What are the results of this experimental paradigm under less-than-ideal conditions and with a wider variety of participants?

What drew you to science communication?

Actually, this relates to my last answer! One way to help broaden the impact of research is to help people understand it. I volunteered with a local group that focuses on helping kids in the community explore science and discover the scientist in themselves. Seeing these kids get so excited about decision-making in fruit flies was great and made me want to do more science communication.

Is there anything else you want us to know about you?

I’m currently a PhD student in the Memory and Attention Lab with Dr. Tim Ricker, and I’m working on finishing my dissertation, so please send all good vibes my way! As is tradition (see interviews of other digital team members, Anna, Ben, and Melinh), I would also like to shout out my furriest collaborator, Freddie, pictured below (who is actually a cat, not a lobster).