Jonathan Fugelsang

I am an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. I received my undergraduate degree in Psychology at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay Ontario and then went to Saskatoon Saskatchewan to study for my PhD at the University of Saskatchewan under the supervision of Valerie Thompson. After obtaining my PhD I spent three years as a post doctoral fellow at Dartmouth College.

Nadia Martin: Graduate Student

After studying Theatre and Education at Laval University, and after traveling the world as a flight attendant for Air Canada, I completed my BA Honours in Psychology at Glendon College (Bilingual campus - I am French Canadian - affiliated to York University, Toronto) in 2006. I am now a graduate student (PhD) since September 2006. My research revolves around the comparison of two modes of reasoning (deductive and causal). Some of my other research interests include the influence of prior beliefs (and their organization) on reasoning, and mathematical reasoning. I have been a teaching assistant for Basic Research and Basic Statistics. I particularly enjoyed leading tutorials in Statistics. I am currently developing teaching aids to be used by other TAs to promote the understanding of statistical concepts by students.

Scott Shafer: Graduate Student

I completed my first BA (Chemistry) at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, a DDS at The Ohio State University, Columbus, and DMOS (Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery) at the University of Chicago. I taught part-time as a Clinical Lecturer for over a decade at the University of Western Ontario, while maintaining a private practice at Grand River and St. Mary's Hospital, Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario. Then changing careers I completed a second undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, Honours Psychology and have continued on in graduate school in Cognitive Psychology. My research involves facial recognition, identity and expression as related to social cognitive processing. Beyond the theoretical interests I am keenly interested in the practical applications of facial identity systems. I am forever indebted to the wisdom, generosity and talent of the many educators with whom I have shared time.

Nathaniel Barr: Graduate Student

After completing my undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Waterloo, I returned to pursue graduate studies under the supervision of Jonathan Fugelsang and Jennifer Stolz. My master's research focused upon how causal and associative relations are represented and subsequently accessed within semantic memory. Currently, I am researching a variety of topics including the relation between spatial and numerical processing and how creativity influences analogical reasoning.

Gord Pennycook: Graduate Student

After receiving my undergraduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan under the supervision of Valerie Thompson, I moved to the University of Waterloo to complete my PhD with Derek Koehler and Jonathan Fugelsang in 2010. My honours thesis was a part of a larger set of studies by Valerie Thompson and Jamie Prowse Turner where we show evidence for a metacognitive mediator between intuitive and analytic reasoning processes. Specifically, we found that a metacognitive "feeling of rightness" partially determines the likely of analytic processing (pdf). My master's thesis focused on the parameters that determine the success of conflict detection during reasoning (i.e., are we good at realizing when we are biased? -- as it turns out, we aren't pdf). More recently, I began researching the relation between rationality and religion. More specifically, we are looking to see if religiosity can be predicted by reasoning style.