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Vanessa Loaiza

Assistant Professor

Programs: Cognitive Psychology

Office: Behavioral Sciences Building 237

Phone: 9704911607

Education:

  • Ph.D., Colorado State University, 2012

About

Area of Specialization: working memory, long-term memory, cognitive aging

Teaching Courses: PSY250

Current Research: Dr Loaiza’s research broadly concerns human memory and cognitive aging. She is particularly interested in the interaction between keeping information active in working memory (WM) and the durable retention of information in long-term memory (LTM) across the adult lifespan.

Lab: Loaiza Cognitive Aging and Memory Lab (CAMeLab)

Lab Website: https://psychlabs.colostate.edu/camlab/

Lab Description: Our lab is generally interested in memory and complex cognition across the adult lifespan. Our research interests concern the processes that allow us to hold onto information in mind from moment-to-moment (i.e., working memory) and how we retrieve that information later on (i.e., long-term memory). We are interested in how these processes change with age, especially in the ability to engage in the mental time travel that allows us to seemingly relive events in our mind’s eye (i.e., recollection). We use a variety of empirical and statistical/computational tools to investigate these issues, which we share freely with other researchers on the Open Science Framework (OSF).

Publications

  • “Active maintenance in working memory reinforces bindings for future retrieval from episodic long-term memory.” Loaiza, V. M., & Souza, A. S. Memory & Cognition. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01596-7, 2024
  • “What you don’t know can’t hurt you: Retro-cues benefit working memory regardless of prior knowledge in long-term memory.” Loaiza, V. M., Cheung, H. W., & Goldenhaus-Manning, D. T. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02408-w, 2024
  • “An overview of the hallmarks of cognitive aging.” Loaiza, V. M. Current Opinion in Psychology, 56, 101784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101784, 2024