Dr Parveen Bhatarah

Research Interests

My research interests currently involve an investigation of the own-race bias effect in face recognition. Various research over the last 40 years has confirmed that own race faces are consistently discriminated more accurately than faces from other races in recognition memory tasks. There are three main explanations for the observed effects: (i) racial prejudice, (ii) differences in face coding, and (iii) degree of contact with other-race faces. A more promising argument combines the degree of contact notion with the idea that encoding differences are at the heart of the own-race bias. My research investigates the possible differences at encoding for own-race and other-race faces, in particular whether unfamiliar faces are encoded in a more piecemeal or featural manner, rather than configurally.

I am also interested in memory structures and processes. To date my research has explored the differences between two memory tasks: free recall (FR) and immediate serial recall (ISR). Performance in these two tasks has traditionally been regarded as evidence for the separation of memory into two components: long- and short-term memory. My research demonstrates that the differing patterns found in the FR and ISR serial position curves could be explained as a consequence of task instructions and output interference, without the need for a dual-store account of memory.

Publications

Bhatarah, P., Ward. G. and Tan, L.
(2008). Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate
serial recall: The serial nature of recall and the effect of test
expectancy. Memory and Cognition, 36(1), 20-34).

Ward, G., Tan, L., & Bhatarah, P. (forthcoming) . The roles of short-term and long-term memory in free and serial recall: Towards a recency-based perspective. In A. S. C. Thorn and M. P. A. Page, (Eds.), Interactions between short-term and long-term memory in the verbal domain. Psychology Press. Hove , UK .

Bhatarah, P., Ward, G. & Tan, L. (2006) Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall: The effect of concurrent task performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition , 32(2), 215-229.

Conference Presentation

Ward, G., Bhatarah, P. & Tan, L. (2004). Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall. Paper. EPS Meeting, University of Lancaster , UK .

Bhatarah, P. & Ward, G. (2004). The effect of short- and long-term memory variables on free recall and immediate serial recall performance. Paper. BPS-CPS Annual Conference, University of Leeds , UK .
Bhatarah, P. & Ward, G. (2003). Investigating the effects of concurrent load and task instruction in free recall and immediate serial recall. Poster. European Society for Cognitive Psychology Conference, Granada , Spain .

Bhatarah, P. & Ward, G. (2003). The effects of pre- and post-cuing task instructions in free recall and immediate serial recall. Poster. BPS-CPS Annual Conference, University of Reading , UK .

Bhatarah, P. & Ward, G. (2002). The effects of concurrent load in free recall and immediate serial recall. Poster. BPS-CPS Annual Conference, University of Kent , UK .