Dr Vanessa Loaiza

School of Psychology

Senior Lecturer

Photo of Vanessa Loaiza
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v.loaiza@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6556

Full contact details

Dr Vanessa Loaiza
School of Psychology
Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences (ICOSS)
219 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP
Profile

I am a cognitive developmental psychologist. My research broadly concerns human memory across the adult lifespan. I am particularly interested in how we keep information in mind from moment to moment (working memory) and how that information is retrieved long after it has left our immediate awareness (long-term memory).

I use a range of behavioural paradigms and statistical/computational modelling methods to investigate questions concerning how factors like attention and prior knowledge influence working memory, how working memory processes impact retrieval from long-term memory, and how these processes vary in healthy older age.

I also am interested in individual differences in working memory, long-term memory, and higher-order cognition more broadly (such as intelligence and executive functions) and how we update information in memory, especially in a world full of misinformation. I am also passionate about open science and enjoy using Bayesian inference to address my research questions.

Qualifications
  • 2007 - BA, Psychology - Loyola Marymount University, USA
  • 2010 - MS, Cognitive Psychology - Colorado State University, USA
  • 2012 - PhD, Cognitive Psychology - Colorado State University, USA
Research interests
  • Working Memory
  • Long-Term Memory
  • Cognitive Ageing
  • Memory updating
  • Meta-cognition
  • Cognitive modelling

I will be accepting applications for a PhD position starting October 2024.

Publications

Journal articles

Grants

"Unraveling underlying working memory elements to address age-related decline" - PI, Experimental Psychology Society, £9782

Teaching activities
  • PSY2004 Developmental Psychology II
  • PSY331 Extended Essay in Psychology
  • PSY346 Research Project in Psychology
  • PSY6308 Computational Neuroscience II
Professional activities and memberships

I am an associate editor at Memory and a consulting editor at Journal of Cognition, Journal of Memory and Language, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. I am an executive committee member of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP) and a fellow of the Psychonomic Society. I am also a member of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) and Women in Cognitive Science (WiCS). Within the psychology department, I am director of PGT recruitment.

PhD Opportunities

I am happy to receive applications for PhD study in my area of research.

We advertise PhD opportunities (Funded or Self-Funded) on FindAPhD.com

See PhD studentship opportunities with Vanessa Loaiza.

For further information, please see the department PhD Opportunities page.