Brooke N. Macnamara, Principal Investigator
Research
The goal of the Skill, Learning, and Performance Laboratory is to investigate predictors of intra-individual change and inter-individual differences in complex performance: skill acquisition, expertise, and achievement.
Predictors include experiential factors (e.g., practice, training) and individual traits (e.g., cognitive abilities, motivation). Other variables of interest include the roles of task characteristics, stress, and societal structures that affect variance in performance.
We seek to examine skilled performance at various levels of analysis considering both internal and external validity.
Additionally, we are interested in theories of achievement: which theories become popular and why, their evidentiary value, and their influence in society.
Members of the S.L.A.P. Lab research factors associated with learning, skill acquisition, achievement, and expertise.
Our current and recent projects include examining:
– how types and amounts of experience predict individual differences in expertise,
– how various cognitive abilities predict individual differences in skilled performance,
– how beliefs predict achievement,
– how task characteristics interact with other factors to predict performance,
– stress and performance under pressure,
– the role of artificial intelligence on human skill, and
– emotion-cognition interaction traits on skill, learning, and performance.