One of my interests has been in using basic cognitive mechanisms, developed in experimental psychology, to better understand the cognitive breakdowns that occur in senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type. The particular theoretical issue that we have been addressing is the extent to which there are breakdowns in the inhibition of partially activated but incorrect information. Such breakdowns could potentially produce overloads in any limited-capacity aspect of the information processing flow.
I have also been working with the imaging group in using imaging technology to better understand the neurological substrates of isolated aspects of cognitive processing. In this work, the substrates of lexical and sublexical components of speeded naming performance along with individual differences in working memory strategies have been investigated.
Research Publications
Marsh EJ, Balota DA, Roediger HL 3rd (2005 Jan). Learning facts from fiction: effects of healthy aging and early-stage dementia of the Alzheimer type. Neuropsychology. 19 (1): 115-29. Full Article >
Gold BT, Balota DA, Kirchhoff BA, Buckner RL (2005 Feb 4). Common and Dissociable Activation Patterns Associated with Controlled Semantic and Phonological Processing: Evidence from fMRI Adaptation. Cereb Cortex. Full Article >
Balota DA, Cortese MJ, Sergent-Marshall SD, Spieler DH, Yap M (2004 Jun). Visual word recognition of single-syllable words. J Exp Psychol Gen. 133 (2): 283-316. Full Article >
Watson JM, McDermott KB, Balota DA (2004 Jan). Attempting to avoid false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm: assessing the combined influence of practice and warnings in young and old adults. Mem Cognit. 32 (1): 135-41. Full Article >
Marsh EJ, Dolan PO, Balota DA, Roediger HL 3rd (2004 Mar). Part-set cuing effects in younger and older adults. Psychol Aging. 19 (1): 134-44. Full Article >
Logan JM, Balota DA (2003 Sep). Conscious and unconscious lexical retrieval blocking in younger and older adults. Psychol Aging. 18 (3): 537-50. Full Article >
Contact Info
David Balota, Ph.D.
Office Phone: 314-935-6549
Campus Box: 1125
Fax: 314-935-7588
dbalota@artsci.wustl.edu
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~dbalota/coglab.html
