J.W. (Bill) Whitlow, Jr.
Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University, Camden Campus

Research Interests - Psychobiology of  learning Evolution of cognition Implicit memory Causal reasoning Science education Metamemory and cognition

Teaching Interests - Experimental psychology Learning and memory Psychology of consciousness Computers and education Spring 2009 Courses Experimental Psychology (This is a temporary link, with some items for 2007, but showing the dates for Spring 2009)

Science Education - SPARC FENAC Project VILLAGE Khula Project AMULET

Center for Children and Childhood Studies

The Center for Children and Childhood Studies (CCCS) supports teaching, research, and service activities that promote the interests of children and youth. The Center was established in Spring 2000 and brings together faculty from a wide variety of disciplines.

Research Interests

Psychobiology of learning and memory

I study noncontingent learning processes, such as habituation and classical conditioning, from the theoretical perspective of Activation-Evocability Theory (AET). This perspective distinguishes between stimulus-specific changes in activation potential and relatively nonspecific changes in response evocability.  Work in my laboratory has applied AET to the analysis of habituation of the rabbit eyeblink reflex, and we plan to extend this analysis to look at habituation in humans.

Evolution of cognitive processes/comparative cognition

One of my long-term interests has been to understand the evolution of cognitive processes. I approach this interest by trying to understand basic processes in human cognition and identifying comparable processes in nonhuman animals.

Human causal reasoning

For the past several years, we have studied how people think about the causes of events.  Our efforts have focused on trying to co-ordinate an approach that uses theoretical principles from associative learning theory with an approach that uses ideas about mental schemata and abstract rules.  Most recently, we have been looking at causal reasoning in the context of social reasoning, using the TV show Survivor as a rough model.

Metamemory and cognition

How do students decide what material to study and how to study it? This practical question offers a way to look at decision making and beliefs about learning in ways that may yield some interesting results from both a theoretical and a pedagogical perspective.

Implicit memory

An ongoing project in my laboratory has examined perceptual identification as an example of human "implicit memory". This task first came to prominence with McGinnis' apparent demonstration of perceptual defense in 1947; it received attention again with Jacoby and Dallas' 1981 demonstration that priming in perceptual identification was long-lasting.  Our work has focused on the determinants of persistence and on the roles of familiarization and codification in perceptual identification.

 

Teaching Interests

Spring 2009 Courses
50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

 

Spring 2007 Courses

Spring 2006 Courses

50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

Spring 2005 Courses

50:830:312 Psychology of Consciousness

50:830:465 Learning and Memory  

Spring 2004 Courses

50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

Fall 2003 Courses

50:830: 312 Psychology of Consciousness

Fall 2002 Courses

56:606:601 Study of Ideas: Rational and Irrational Minds

50:830: 312 Psychology of Consciousness

Fall 2001 Courses

50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

50:830:459 Service Learning: Computers and the Community

50:830:495:09 Independent Study

Spring 2001 Courses

50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

50:830:459 Service Learning: Computers and the Community

50:830:495:09 Independent Study

Fall 2000 Courses

50:830:225 Method and Theory in Psychology

50:830:465  Learning and Memory

Spring 2000 Courses

50:830:215  Statistics for Social Science

50:830: 312 Psychology of Consciousness

Fall 1999 Courses

50:830:380 & 381 Experimental Psychology

50:830:495:07 Independent Study

Spring 1999 Courses

56:606:601 Study of Ideas: Rational and Irrational Minds

50:830:495 Education, Culture, and Cognition

Science Education

Since 1991, I have directed the Science Preparation Alliance of Rutgers and Camden (SPARC) program. This program seeks to enhance science education for precollege students, but its particular focus is on science education in the Camden public schools. The program emphasizes education in the brain, behavioral, and cognitive (BBC) sciences, which remain largely the province of health classes rather than science classes.  One of SPARC's activities is to sponsor an annual Allied Health Sciences Expo at Rutgers. In 1997, I helped create the Forum for Education in Neuroscience and Applied Cognition. The forum seeks to transform education about the cognitive and neural sciences at the precollege level, communicate to the general public information about advances in these disciplines, and foster the development of interdisciplinary undergraduate programs in brain, behavior and cognition. In 1998, I developed a curriculum for the Lucent Scholars Khula Project and recruited an instructional team to go to the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.  The project works with science and mathematics teachers of the "historically disadvantaged populations", that is, the nonwhite communities, and the first cycle of academic programs was carried out in June and July of 1998. In 1998,  Robert Wood (in the Sociology Department) and I started work on Project VILLAGE with the Camden City Board of Education.  This project seeks to link community centers, the Camden Public Library, parochial and private schools with the public schools and Rutgers University to create resource access opportunities for students and community residents. In 1999, Sheila Foster and I started the AMULET project to address issues of lead poisoning and asthma management among children in Camden.

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Please send any comments, questions or inquiries to me at:  bwhitlow@crab.rutgers.edu
or by mail to:
J.W. Whitlow, Jr., Psychology Department, 311 N. Fifth St, Camden, NJ 08102-1405

This page was last modified on January 3, 2004