Schacter's research has focused on psychological and biological aspects of human memory and amnesia, with a particular emphasis on the distinction between conscious and nonconscious forms of memory and, more recently, on brain mechanisms of memory distortion. He has also studied the effects of aging on memory. His research uses both cognitive testing and brain imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Schacter has written three books, edited seven volumes, and published over 200 scientific articles and chapters.

Schacter's current research includes a variety of projects. Cognitive studies are focusing on the mechanisms involved in reducing or suppressing robust false recognition effects. Recent evidence from our laboratory suggests that people can reduce false memories by invoking a distinctiveness heuristic -- a mode of responding in which people demand access to distinctive information before deciding that a test item is "old". Current research is examining the nature of the distinctiveness heuristic and its relation to other mechanism of false memory suppression in studies that include college students, older adults, and amnesic patients.

Neuroimaging studies are concerned with a number of topics. One series of fMRI studies is examining the nature of encoding processes, using recently developed event-related fMRI procedures. Other neuroimaging studies using both fMRI and PET are exploring the neural correlates of visual and auditory priming on various kinds of implicit memory tests.

For information about the researchers working in the Schacter Lab, click here.