Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Fields of Study
- Perception, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience
Areas of Interest
aging differences, attention, circadian arousal, individual difference, inhibitory functions
Biography
Prof. Hasher received her A.B. from Smith College and her Ph.D.(1970) in Psychology from the University of California Berkeley, where she also received post doctoral training in cognitive development. She taught at Carleton University, Temple University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Duke University before joining the University of Toronto in 2000. Her research interests cover a range of topics in cognition including circadian rhythms, cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive gerontology, attention, memory, and comprehension.
Prof. Hasher's gerontology research centers on two major issues. The first is the role that basic attentional processes play in the ability to understand language and remember events. The key question centers on how attention changes with age. The second line of work is concerned with adult age differences in circadian patterns of arousal and with synchrony effects, that is with the question of what aspects of cognition differ (or do not) when performed at an individual's optimal vs. non-optimal time of day.
Prof. Hasher is married to Dr. David Goldstein, and they have two children -- Jeremy and Jennie.