Daneman, Meredyth
Contact Information
3359 Mississauga Road N.
Mississauga, Ontario
L5L 1C6
Research Overview
My primary research program is concerned with developing ways to measure, understand, and improve reading comprehension skills. An assumption underlying my approach is that there are two major determinants of comprehension: the text and the reader. In the past, my research focused primarily on the contributions of the reader. My current research investigates contributions of the text and reading situation as well; for example, I am attempting to establish the degree of text difficulty and the degree of constraint on reading time that produce optimal levels of text comprehension. My early individual-differences research focused almost exclusively on developing a measure of the reader's working memory capacity and establishing that it correlates with reading comprehension. My latest research goes beyond demonstrating the correlation; it explores how working memory theory can be applied to improving comprehension in educational settings (e.g., during learning, test taking). I am also exploring other sources of difference in reading skill besides capacity differences. Brenda Hannon and I have developed and validated a new individual-differences measure that provides estimates of a reader's ability to activate and integrate long-term memory knowledge with text information, to make text-based inferences, and to recall text. We are using this measure to advance our understanding of age-related changes in reading, and to explore the cognitive and memory processes tapped by a variety of other reading, verbal reasoning, and intelligence tests, including widely-used, yet controversial, multiple-choice reading comprehension tests such as the Verbal Scholastic Assessment Test (VSAT). Although the study of reading skills remains my primary focus, I also apply my individual-differences perspective to understanding a variety of phenomena of interest to cognitive psychologists. How does working memory relate to constructs such as consciousness, attention, control? What accounts for differences in people's susceptibility to unconscious influences and distortions in long-term memory? My individual-differences approach to comprehension and memory has important educational and clinical applications.
As a member of the CIHR Research Group on Sensory and Cognitive Aging, I am involved in investigating the sensory and cognitive factors that contribute to age-related declines in speech and language comprehension. Older adults, whether or not they have clinically significant hearing loss, have more trouble than their younger counterparts understanding speech in everyday life. These age-related difficulties in speech understanding may be attributed to changes in higher-level cognitive processes such as language comprehension, memory, attention, and cognitive slowing, or to lower-level sensory and perceptual processes. The typical approach has been to focus either on cognitive declines or sensory declines in artificially optimized test conditions. In contrast, our approach focuses on the complex interactions between age-related changes in cognitive and perceptual factors that might affect spoken language comprehension, especially in non-ideal, realistic conditions. In large part, we have been finding that age-related changes in speech understanding are a consequence of auditory declines. For example, when the young and old are tested under identical physical conditions, as is typical in most cognitive aging studies, we find that the older adults have more difficulty comprehending and recalling spoken discourse. However, when we equate young and old for perceptual stress by adjusting the listening situation to take into account each individual's hearing status, the age-related comprehension differences are largely eliminated. Only rarely do cognitive aging researchers measure the perceptual abilities of their participants, and seldom (if ever) do they control for these differences. The implicit assumption is that age-related differences in perceptual abilities will have a negligible effect on cognitive performance. Our research shows that this assumption need not be valid.
There are openings in my lab for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Please contact me at daneman@psych.utoronto.ca Students wishing to do graduate work on cognitive and sensory aging will be eligible for admission to our trans-disciplinary CIHR Graduate Research Training Program.
Publications
Ben-David, B. M., Chambers, C. G., Daneman, M., Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Reingold, E., & Schneider, B. A. (in press). Effects of aging and noise on real-time spoken word recognition: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Schneider, B. A., Pichora-Fuller, M. K., & Daneman, M. (2010). Effects of senescent changes in audition and cognition on spoken language comprehension. In S. Gordon-Salant, R. D. Frisina, A. N. Popper, & R. R. Fay (Eds.). The aging auditory system: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research 34 (pp. 167-201). New York: Springer.
Sheridan, H., Reingold, E., & Daneman, M. (2009). Using puns to study contextual influences on lexical ambiguity resolution: Evidence from eye movements. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 875-881.
Gordon, M., Daneman, M., & Schneider, B. A. (2009). Comprehension of speeded discourse by younger and older listeners. Experimental Aging Research, 35(3), 277-296.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (2009). Age-related changes in reading comprehension: An individual-differences perspective. Experimental Aging Research, 35, 432-456.
Ben-David, B. M., Chambers, C., Daneman, M., Pichora-Fuller, M. K.., Reingold, E., & Schneider, B. A. (2009) Eye-tracking: Online measurement of age and noise effects on listening. The Bulletin of the American Auditory Society, 34(1), p. 28.
Ben-David, B. M., Chambers, C., Daneman, M., Pichora-Fuller, M. K.., Reingold, E., & Schneider, B. A. (2009) Controlling for age related hearing loss can eliminate aging differences in lexical competition: Evidence from eye-tracking as an online measurement of age and noise effects on listening. Canadian Acoustics, 37 (3), 150-151.
Lu, Z., Daneman, M., & Reingold, E. M. (2008). Cultural differences in cognitive processing styles: Evidence form eye movements during scene perception. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2428-2432). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Schneider, B. A., Li, L., & Daneman, M. (2007). How competing speech interferes with speech comprehension in everyday listening situations. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 18, 559-572.
Daneman, M., Lennertz, T., & Hannon, B. (2007). Shallow semantic processing of text: Evidence from eye movements. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 85-105.
Daneman, M., & Hannon, B. (2007). What do working memory span tasks like reading span really measure? In N. Osaka, R. H. Logie, and M. D'Esposito (Eds.) The cognitive neuroscience of working memory (pp. 21-42). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burton, C., & Daneman, M. (2007). Compensating for a limited working memory capacity during reading: Evidence from eye movements. Reading Psychology, 28, 163-186.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (2007). Prospective memory: The relative effects of encoding, retrieval, and the match between encoding and retrieval.Memory, 15, 572-604.
Daneman, M., Hannon, B., & Burton, C. (2006). Are there age-related differences in shallow semantic processing of text? Evidence from eye movements. Discourse Processes, 42, 177-203.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (2006). What do tests of reading comprehension ability such as the VSAT really measure? A componential analysis. In A. V. Mitel (Ed.) Trends in Educational Psychology (pp. 1-44). Nova Science Publications.
Murphy, D., Daneman, M., & Schneider, B. A. (2006). Why do older adults have difficulty following conversations? Psychology and Aging, 21, 49-61.
Dalton, A. L., & Daneman, M. (2006). Social suggestibility to central and peripheral misinformation. Memory, 14, 486-501.
Schneider, B. A., Daneman, M., & Murphy, D. (2005). Speech comprehension difficulties in older adult: Cognitive slowing or age-related changes in hearing? Psychology and Aging, 20, 261-271.
Hannon B. & Daneman, M. (2004). Shallow semantic processing of text: An individual-differences account. Discourse Processes, 37, 187-204.
Li, L., Daneman, M., Qi, J. G., & Schneider, B. A. (2004). Does the information content of an irrelevant source differentially affect speech recognition in younger and older adults? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 1077-1091.
Garrod, S. C., & Daneman, M. (2003). The psychology of reading. L. Nadel (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, (Vol 6., pp. 848-854). Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Publishers, Ltd.
Schneider, B. A., Daneman, M., & Pichora-Fuller, M. K. (2002). Listening in aging adults: From discourse comprehension to psychoacoustics.Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56, 139-152.
Daneman, M. (2001). A review of Converging Methods for Understanding Reading and Dyslexia by R M. Klein, and P. McMullen (Eds.) (1999, Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press). Canadian Psychology, 2, 143-146.
Daneman, M. (2001). Learning disabled individuals show deficits on working memory tasks: The question is why? Issues in Education, 7, 79-85.
Daneman, M. (2001). Commentary: Working memory, long-term memory, and the effects of aging: In M. Naveh-Benjamin, M., Moscovitch, M., and H. L. Roediger,. III (Eds.), Perspectives on human memory and cognitive aging: Essays in honour of Fergus Craik (pp. 161-167). East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press.
Daneman, M., & Hannon, B (2001). Using working memory theory to investigate the construct validity of multiple-choice reading comprehension tests such as the SAT. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 208-223.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (2001). A new tool for measuring and understanding individual differences in the component processes of reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 103-128.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (2001). Susceptibility to semantic illusions: An individual-differences perspective. Memory & Cognition, 29, 449-461.
Merikle, P.M., & Daneman, M. (2000). Conscious vs. unconscious perception. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The New Cognitive Neurosciences, Second Edition (pp. 1295-1303). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Daneman, M., & Reingold, E. (2000). Do readers use phonological codes to activate word meanings? Evidence from eye movements. In A. Kennedy, R. Radach, D. Heller, & J Pynte (Eds.), Reading as a perceptual process (pp. 447-473). Elsevier Science Ltd
Schneider, B.A., Daneman, M., Murphy, D. R., & Kwong-See, S. (2000). Listening to discourse in distracting settings: The effects of aging.Psychology and Aging, 15, 110- 125.
Speranza, F., Daneman, M., & Schneider, B. A. (2000). How aging affects the reading of words in noisy backgrounds. Psychology and Aging, 15, 253-258.
Hannon, B., & Daneman, M. (1998). Facilitating knowledge-based inferences in less-skilled readers. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23, 149-172.
Merikle, P.M., & Daneman, M. (1998). Psychological investigations of unconscious perception. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, 5-18.
Murphy. D., Daneman, M., & Schneider, B. A. (1998). The influence of a secondary task on the understanding of continuous discourse by younger and older adults. Canadian Acoustics, 26, 94-95.
Daneman, M. (1997). Does working-memory theory work? Invited review of "Working Memory and Human Cognition," by J.T.E. Richardson, R. W. Engle, L. Hasher, R. H. Logie, E.R. Stoltzfus, and R.T. Zacks (1996 Oxford University Press). Contemporary Psychology, 42, 1010.
Daneman, M. & Merikle, P.M. (1996). Working memory and comprehension: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 422-433.
Merikle, P.M., & Daneman, M. (1996). Memory for events during anesthesia: A meta-analysis. In B. Bonke, J. Bovil, & N. Moreman (Eds.), Memory and Awareness in Anaesthesia III (pp. 108-121). Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum.
Merikle, P.M., & Daneman, M. (1996). Memory for unconsciously perceived events: Evidence from anesthetized patients. Consciousness and Cognition, 5, 525-541.
Rukavina, I. & Daneman, M. (1996). Acquiring knowledge about competing scientific theories from text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 272-287.
Daneman, M. (1995). Memory span deficits in people with severe learning difficulties. Editorial and review of "Working Memory and Severe Learning Difficulties," by C. Hulme and S. Mackenzie (1992, Erlbaum). American Journal of Psychology, 108, 464-470.
Daneman, M. & Ellis, M. (1995). Memory for expository text: The effects of verbal and pictorial enhancements. Educational Psychology, 15, 115-126.
Daneman, M., Nemeth, J., Stainton, M., & Huelsmann, K. (1995). Working memory as a predictor of reading achievement in orally educated hearing-impaired children. The Volta Review, 97, 225-241.
Daneman, M., & Reingold, E. (1995). What eye fixations tell us about phonological recoding during reading. In J. M. Henderson, M. Singer, & F. Ferreira (Eds.), Reading and Language Processing (pp. 25-50). Mahwah, N. J.: Erlbaum.
Daneman, M., Reingold, E. M., & Davidson, M. (1995). Time course of phonological activation during reading: Evidence from eye fixations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 884-898.
Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Schneider, B. S., & Daneman, M. (1995). How young and old adults listen to and remember speech in noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 593-608.
Daneman, M. (1994). Working memory's role in language processing. Review of "Working Memory and Language," by S.E. Gathercole and A. D. Baddeley (1993, Erlbaum). Language and Speech, 37, 443-447.
Daneman, M., & Reingold, E. (1993). What eye fixations tell us about phonological recoding during reading. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47, 153-178.
Daneman, M., & Stainton, M. (1993). The generation effect in reading and proofreading: Is it easier or harder to detect errors in one's own writing?Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 297-313.
Daneman, M. & Newson, M. (1992). Assessing the importance of subvocalization during normal silent reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4, 55-77.
Daneman, M. (1991). Working memory as a predictor of verbal fluency. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 20, 445-464.
Daneman, M. (1991). Individual differences in reading skills. In R. Barr, M.L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, and P.D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. 2, pp. 512-538). White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.
Daneman, M. & Stainton, M. (1991). Phonological recoding in silent reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 618-632.
Daneman, M. (1988). How reading braille is both like and unlike reading print. Memory & Cognition, 16, 497-504.
Daneman, M. (1988). Word knowledge and reading skill. In M. Daneman, G.E. MacKinnon, & T.G. Waller (Eds.), Reading Research: Advances in Theory and Practice (Vol. 6, pp. 145-175). San Diego: Academic Press.
Daneman, M. (1988). Introduction to reading comprehension. In M. Daneman, G.E. MacKinnon & T.G. Waller (Eds.), Reading Research: Advances in Theory and Practice (Vol. 6, pp. 1-11). San Diego: Academic Press.
Daneman, M., MacKinnon, G. E., & Waller, T. G. (Eds.), (1988). Reading Research: Advances in Theory and Practice, Volume 6. San Diego: Academic Press.
Daneman, M. (1987). Reading and working memory. In J. Beech and A. Colley, (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Reading (pp. 57-86). John Wiley & Sons, Limited.
Daneman, M., & Tardif, T. (1987). Working memory and reading skill re-examined. In M. Coltheart (Ed.), Attention and Performance XII: The Psychology of Reading (pp. 491-508). Hove: Erlbaum.
Daneman, M. (1986). Book review of R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), "Human abilities: An information-processing approach." N. Y.: Freeman, 1985. In Human Intelligence: International Newsletter, Vol. 7/2, p. 10.
Daneman, M., & Green, I. (1986). Individual differences in comprehending and producing words in context. Journal of Memory and Language, 25,1-18.
Daneman, M. (1984). Why some readers are better than others: A process and storage account. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the Theory of Intelligence (Volume II, pp. 367-384). Hillsdale, N. J.: Erlbaum.
Daneman, M., & Blennerhassett, A. (1984). How to assess the listening comprehension skills of prereaders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 1372-1381.
Daneman, M. (1983). What's in a name? Many fascinating things. A review of "Names for Things: A Study of Human Learning," by J. Macnamara,Canadian Journal of Psychology, 37, 572-575.
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P.A. (1983). Individual differences in integrating information between and within sentences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 561-584.
Daneman, M. (1982). The measurement of reading comprehension: How not to trade construct validity for predictive power. Intelligence, 6, 331-345.
Daneman, M., Carpenter, P.A., & Just, M. A. (1982). Cognitive processes and reading skills. In B. Hutson (Ed.), Advances in Reading/Language Research (Vol. 1, pp. 83-124). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, Inc.
Dee-Lucas, D., Just, M., Carpenter, P.A., & Daneman, M. (1982). What eye fixations tell us about the time course of text integration. In R. Groner and P. Fraisse (Eds.), Cognition and Eye Movements (pp. 155-168). Amsterdam: North Holland, and Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften.
Carpenter, P.A., & Daneman, M. (1981). Lexical retrieval and error recovery in reading: A model based on eye fixations. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 137-160.
Daneman, M., & Case, R. (1981). Syntactic form, semantic complexity and short-term memory: Influences on children's acquisition of new linguistic structures. Developmental Psychology, 17, 367-378.
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-466.