Anne Cook, Ph.D. |
Selected Publications:Cook, A. E., Guéraud, S,. Was, C. A., & O'Brien, E. J. (2007). Foregrounding effects during reading, revisited. Discourse Processes, 44, 91-112. Speer, L. L., Cook, A. E., McMahon, W. M., & Clark, E. (2007). Face processing in children with autism: Effects of stimulus contents and type. Autism, 11, 265-277. Rayner, K., Cook, A. E., Juhasz, B. J., & Frazier, L. (2006). Immediate disambiguation of lexically ambiguous words during reading: Evidence from eye movements. British Journal of Psychology, 97, 467-482. Frazier, L., Carminati, M. N., Cook, A. E., Majewski, H., & Rayner, K. (2006). Semantic evaluation of syntactic structure: Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 99, 53-62. Cook, A. E., & Guéraud, S. (2005). What have we been missing? The role of general world knowledge in discourse processing. Discourse Processes, 39, 365-378. Cook, A. E., Myers, J. L., & O'Brien, E. J. (2005). Processing an anaphor when there is no antecedent. Discourse Processes, 39, 101-120. |
Associate Professor |
|
Program Affiliation(s):Learning & Cognition, Statistical & Research Methods Degrees:PhD, University of New Hampshire, 2000 - Cognitive Psychology
Bio:My primary research interest is in the cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension. My research focuses on how readers retrieve information from long-term memory (either from general world knowledge or from a memory representation of a text) during reading, and the factors that affect this reactivation process. In current research, I am investigating the role that general world knowledge plays in reading and how this interacts with information presented in a text. This interaction of general world knowledge and context can occur at the lexical level, the sentence level, and the discourse level. I am also interested in the inferences that people draw when reading. For example, how do we make predictions during reading about "what happens next" in a text, and what factors govern whether we will make those predictions? Research in our lab has demonstrated that although readers may activate inferences, they may not always be relevant to the situation described in the text, and they may not always be instantiated in memory. My research is conducted by measuring reading and reaction times to sentences and probe words to measure activation levels of specific concepts. I also use eye tracking measures to examine reading processes on a finer level. More recently, I have become interested in applying theoretical and methodological approaches from cognitive psychology to research on children with autism, and to the detection of deception. Although these research areas are very different, they both benefit from the application of technology that can be used to investigate cognitive processes without requiring direct interaction with a participant during testing. Although eye tracking research is relatively new to both of these areas, it offers great promise for refining and expanding research in the field(s). The Reading Lab in the Educational Psychology Department houses an Applied Sciences Laboratory head-mounted Eye Tracker. |
