Psychology: Research

Psychology Research Labs and Centers

To see what research is being conducted in which labs around the department, browse through the listing below. To go to a particular lab's homepage, simply click on the appropriate link.

The faculty at the University of Virginia include some of the most distinguished experts on children, families and the law in the country. In an effort to focus and coordinate efforts to address pressing family problems, the multidisciplinary Center for Children, Families and the Law has been founded. The Center is a multidisciplinary group of more than 25 faculty members from a wide range of disciplines including, faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences (psychology, sociology, economics, history, religious studies), the School of Law, and the Schools of Education and Medicine. The Center works to promote interdisciplinary research, to improve education, and to promote informed policy and increases in public understanding of family issues.

The Center for Developmental and Health Research Methodology at the University of Virginia is committed to the identification and dissemination of improved ways to model and analyze empirical data reflecting process and change.

We study how children learn about the world, and in particular, how learning language affects how they think and reason about objects, events, and people. We have approached this issue from various angles, considering the sources of information children use to learn new words, the strength of different types of word learning, and the power of language to convey information even to children just beginning to produce their first words.

At the Child Study Center of the University of Virginia, we investigate the development of infants and young children. Most of our projects focus on early cognitive development, and we are particularly interested in how young children begin to master the many symbols that are so important for thought and communication with others. In infancy, they start learning about pictures--how pictures differ from real objects and how they can be used to provide information about the world. Young children also begin to understand how to use maps and models, and they take their first steps toward mastering the all-important skills of reading and math.

Our laboratory is concerned with how children come to understand people and their minds. Recently our work particularly centers on the mystery of how young children come to participate in pretend worlds (which are, fundamentally, mental). Other work concerns how people in different cultures think about minds and mental processes.

The Quantitative area faculty and graduate students are interested in the measurement and modeling of ability and personality constructs across the lifespan. We research both long- and short-term longitudinal data latent modeling techniques such as growth curve modeling, dynamic factor analysis, and item response theory and apply them to substantive data. Our goal is to understand processes and other kinds of change over time.

We are interested in studying the low level mechanisms of perception. In particular, our research explores visual and auditory grouping phenomena. As opposed to the classical, subjective Gestalt accounts of such phenomena, we have developed quantitative measures of grouping and attempt to create models of perception that incorporate knowledge and research from a variety of disciplines.

The Mary D. Ainsworth Psychological Clinic is a facility sponsored by the Department of Psychology's Clinical Training Program. The Ainsworth Clinic is staffed by clinical faculty members and supervised graduate student therapists. The Clinic provides confidential psychological services at no charge.

We are primarily involved in exploring the development of the central nervous system. Current research falls into several categories. In one we are examining the role that function plays in guiding proper brain maturation. In a second we are examining growth in diverse species in order to understand general properties of early neural development and brain organization.

The Peer Nomination Project is concerned broadly with the assessment of personality traits and pathology, particularly the validity of self-report assessment instruments. It is based on the recognition that some people are unable to view themselves realistically, unaware of the effect that their behavior has on other people, or unwilling to report socially undesirable traits. Our project is designed to compare people's descriptions of their own personality traits with descriptions that are obtained from peers.

Our lab is interested in the research of implicit social cognition - cognitions, feelings, and evaluations that are not necessarily available to conscious awareness, conscious control, conscious intention, or self-reflection.

In our research, we are attempting to gain an understanding of how people perceive and think about space. Specifically, our studies involve spatial representation, imagined transformations, perception-action interactions, size perception in different display media, as well as recent functional neuroimaging (fMRI) studies in these areas.

Increased age has been found to be associated with lower levels of performance on many different types of cognitive tasks. Our research has focused on three issues relevant to this phenomenon. 1. What are the proximal determinants of age-related effects on cognition? That is, are some aspects of cognitive functioning more fundamental than others with respect to age-related influences? 2. How are age-related influences on cognitive variables organized? 3. What factors moderate the effects of aging on cognitive functioning?

Our lab focuses on the influence of social relationships, autonomy, and attachment processes on adolescent development. Our current study, Kids' Lives, Families, and Friends (KLIFF), is a longitudinal study in which we are working to learn more about how young teenagers develop and manage friendships with their peers, and how family relationships influence qualities of these peer relationships and teens susceptibility to peer pressure.

We are interested in learning that occurs outside of awareness, especially learning new motor skills. Within that broad domain, people in the lab have a number of different interests, including brain mechanisms of skill acquisition, timing, circadian rhythms, and the development of automaticity.