Social Psychology Network

Maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University

Jan Keenan

My research covers three major areas: language comprehension, memory, and social cognition. My comprehension research examines how the social or pragmatic aspects of language contribute to coherence and inference processes, especially in neuropsychological populations showing communicative deficits. I also have funding to examine language comprehension skills in children with dyslexia and to examine the behavioral genetics of comprehension. My memory research has spanned a range of topics from memory for conversation and socially significant events to fanning effects in retrieval processes. One current focus is memory processes in the courtroom: how metamemory processes in jurors affect evidence review in jury deliberation, whether jury deliberation improves memory for evidence, and biasing effects created by the order of information presentation. My social cognition work has been concerned with trait judgments about self and others, and the types of memory representations that underlie these judgments.

Primary Interests:

  • Communication, Language
  • Evolution and Genetics
  • Interpersonal Processes
  • Judgment and Decision Making
  • Law and Public Policy
  • Research Methods, Assessment
  • Self and Identity
  • Social Cognition

Books:

Journal Articles:

  • Kaakinen, J., Hyona, J., & Keenan, J.M. (2002). Individual differences in perspective effects on on-line text processing. Discourse Processes, 33, 159 – 173.
  • Keenan, J.M. (2002). Inferences. In N. Smelser & P. Baltes (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 11, 7432 – 7435. Amsterdam: Pergamon.
  • Keenan, J. M. (1993). An exemplar model can explain Klein & Loftus' results. In T. Srull & R. Wyer (Eds.), The mental representation of trait and autobiographical knowledge about the self: Advances in social cognition, Vol. 5. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Keenan, J. M., Golding, J. M., & Brown, P. (1992). Factors controlling the advantage of self-reference over other-reference. Social Cognition, 10, 79-94.
  • Keenan, J. M., & Jennings, T. M. (1995). Priming of inference concepts in the construction-integration model. In C. A. Weaver III, S. Mannes, & C. R. Fletcher (Eds.), Discourse comprehension: Essays in honor of Walter Kintsch. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Keenan, J. M., & Jennings, T. M. (1995). The role of word-based priming in inference research. In R. F. Lorch & E. O'Brien (Eds.), Sources of coherence in reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Keenan, J. M., & Simon, J. A. (1996). Priming between trait judgments and autobiographical retrieval. Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society, 1, 18.
  • Polk, T., Reed, C.L ., Keenan, J.M., Hogarth, P., & Anderson, C.A. (2001). A dissociation between symbolic number knowledge and analogue magnitude information. Brain & Cognition, 47, 545 – 563.
  • Pritchard, M. E., & Keenan, J. M. (1999). Memory monitoring in mock jurors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 5, 152–168.
  • Pritchard, M. & Keenan, J.M. (2002). Does jury deliberation really improve jurors’ memories? Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 589 - 601.
  • Simon, J.A., Keenan, J. M., Pennington, B.F., Taylor, A.K., Hagerman, R.J. (2001). Discourse processing in women with Fragile X Syndrome: Evidence for a deficit establishing coherence. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 18, 1-18.

Courses Taught:

  • Discourse Processes Seminar
  • Proseminar in Reading and Language
  • Research Methods in Psychology
  • Working Memory Seminar
  • Your Memory: How It Works and How to Improve It

Jan Keenan
Department of Psychology
University of Denver
2155 South Race Street
Denver, Colorado 80208
United States of America

  • Phone: (303) 871-3713
  • Fax: (303) 871-4747

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