Education

BS, Arizona State University
MS, Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., University of Iowa

Area of Psychology

Cognitive

Academic/Research Interests

My research interests in general can be described as “information processing”.  That is, I am interested in how we are able to take in through our senses all of the stimuli in the world (e.g., sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc.) and integrate this information into an internal representation which can then be used to decide on how to act on our world (i.e., respond behaviorally).  That’s the overarching interest of my work.  More specifically, I’m interested in how regularities in our environment are picked up and used in this process.  An example of a correlation in the environment is the relationship between the color red and octagons.  Because of all the stop-signs that you’ve seen, the odds that an octagonal object is red is higher than average.  Therefore, if your mind can pick up on these correlations, you might perceive the redness of a stop-sign a little bit quicker once you’ve perceived that it is octagonal.  I’m interested in how these seemingly irrelevant events can affect our processing of the world.

Curriculum Vitae
Teaching Statement
Research Statement
Recent Publications (PDFs available upon request)

Lab Information:  I am currently still recruiting research assistants for the 2011 - 2012 school year.  Contact me at rdanek@iwu.edu for exciting research opportunities!

Courses I Teach

General Psychology - Syllabus
Perception & Cognition - Syllabus
Research Experience in Cognitive Psychology - Syllabus

Additional Links

My Current University (Illinois Wesleyan University)
My Department
My Alma Mater (University of Iowa - Doctoral Degree)
My Alma Mater (Pennsylvania State University - Master's Degree)
My Alma Mater (Arizona State University - Bachelor's Degree)