Mary Hegarty is an Irish–American psychologist who is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research considers spatial thinking in complex processes. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Mary Hegarty | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Carnegie Mellon University University College Dublin |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Early life and education
editHegarty was an undergraduate and graduate[1] student at University College Dublin.[2] After graduating, she stayed in Ireland for three years, working as a research assistant at St Patrick's College, before moving to the United States for her doctoral research.[2] She joined Carnegie Mellon University as a doctoral researcher.[2]
Research and career
editHegarty was appointed to the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research considers spatial thinking, and how it is involved in complex psychological processes. She has demonstrated that eye fixation data can be used to understand mechanical reasoning (e.g. interpretation of graphics).[3] Eye-fixation data allows Hegarty to follow the processes involved in understanding diagrams and maps.[4] Hegarty is interested in individual differences in navigation, learning the layout of environments, mental rotation and taking perspective.[5][6] She has investigated why people with great spatial abilities are more successful in STEM-related disciplines.[7]
Awards and honours
edit- 2001 Elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association[4]
- 2022 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science[8]
Selected publications
edit- Akira Miyake; Naomi P Friedman; David A Rettinger; Priti Shah; Mary Hegarty (1 December 2001). "How are visuospatial working memory, executive functioning, and spatial abilities related? A latent-variable analysis". Journal of Experimental Psychology. 130 (4): 621–640. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.621. ISSN 0096-3445. PMID 11757872. Wikidata Q52015623.
- M. Hegarty; M.A. Just (December 1993). "Constructing Mental Models of Machines from Text and Diagrams". Journal of Memory and Language. 32 (6): 717–742. doi:10.1006/JMLA.1993.1036. ISSN 0749-596X. Wikidata Q62714859.
- Thomas Wolbers; Mary Hegarty (6 February 2010). "What determines our navigational abilities?". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 14 (3): 138–146. doi:10.1016/J.TICS.2010.01.001. ISSN 1364-6613. PMID 20138795. Wikidata Q37688619.
References
edit- ^ Hegarty, Mary (1983). Individual differences in visuo-spatial processes and their relation to success in mathematical problem solving: an exploratory study (Thesis). Dublin: University College Dublin. OCLC 42838783.
- ^ a b c "IEEE Xplore Mary Hegarty". IEEE. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
- ^ "Mary Hegarty | Center for Virtual Environments & Behavior | UC Santa Barbara". www.recveb.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
- ^ a b "COGNAV WEBINAR: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN NAVIGATION ABILITY".
- ^ Individual Differences in Navigation Ability with Prof Mary Hegarty, 27 August 2021, retrieved 2022-04-03
- ^ Hegarty, Mary; Canham, Matt S.; Fabrikant, Sara I. (January 2010). "Thinking about the weather: How display salience and knowledge affect performance in a graphic inference task". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 36 (1): 37–53. doi:10.1037/a0017683. ISSN 1939-1285. PMID 20053043.
- ^ "Educating Spatial Thinking for STEM Success". cogsci.mindmodeling.org. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
- ^ "2021 AAAS Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science". www.aaas.org. Retrieved 2022-04-02.