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David E Irwin

Professor Emeritus

Research Interests

Much of my past research concentrated on a classic problem in perception: How do we perceive the visual world as unified, stable, and continuous despite the frequent disruptions caused by movements of the eyes? I addressed this question by examining what people remember from a single glance at a scene, and by examining how people combine information across eye movements. More recently I investigated the effects of eye movements on cognitive processing; it turns out that eye movements actually interfere with some cognitive processes but not with others. In retirement I am studying waves, music, and the Russian language.

Education

Ph.D. from the University of Michigan

Recent Publications

Robinson, M. M., Benjamin, A. S., & Irwin, D. E. (2020). Is there a K in capacity? Assessing the structure of visual short-term memory. Cognitive Psychology, 121, [101305]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101305

Robinson, M. M., & Irwin, D. E. (2019). Are there two visual short-term memory stores? A state-trace analysis. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 90, 23-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2019.02.001

Cronin, D. A., & Irwin, D. E. (2018). Visual working memory supports perceptual stability across saccadic eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(11), 1739-1759. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000567

Irwin, D. E., & Robinson, M. M. (2018). How post-saccadic target blanking affects the detection of stimulus displacements across saccades. Vision Research, 142, 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2017.09.004

Robinson, M. M., Clevenger, J., & Irwin, D. E. (2018). The action is in the task set, not in the action. Cognitive Psychology, 100, 17-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.11.005

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