My research examines how memory works, how it shapes decisions and personal experience, and how it can be studied using behavioural experiments, computational methods, text analysis, and brain imaging. The areas below provide an accessible introduction to my main research interests.
Each area includes a small selection of papers that provide useful starting points. The areas are numbered only to make them easier to refer to; they are not presented in order of importance.
Why do some experiences stand out in memory more than others?
I study how emotion, reward, and other forms of motivation influence what people remember. These factors can make an item or event more memorable, but they do not necessarily improve memory for all of its surrounding details. One recurring question is whether motivation strengthens memory generally or selectively prioritizes particular information.
Madan, C. R. (2017). Motivated cognition: Effects of reward, emotion, and other motivational factors across a variety of cognitive domains. Collabra: Psychology, 3, 24. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.111
Bowen, H. J. & Madan, C. R. (2025). Untangling the threads of motivated memory: Independent influences of reward and emotion. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32(1), 396-406. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02546-9
Madan, C. R., Scott, S. M. E., & Kensinger, E. A. (2019). Positive emotion enhances association-memory. Emotion, 19(4), 733-740. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000465
Palombo, D. J., Te, A. A.*, Checknita, K. J.*, & Madan, C. R. (2021). Exploring the facets of emotional episodic memory: Remembering 'what', 'when', and 'which'. Psychological Science, 32(7), 1104-1114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621991548
How does memory for previous outcomes influence later choices?
When people learn about risks through experience, their decisions depend not only on what happened but also on what they remember happening. My research examines how rare, extreme, recent, or otherwise distinctive outcomes become especially memorable and can therefore have a disproportionate influence on later decisions.
Madan, C. R., Ludvig, E. A., & Spetch, M. L. (2019). Comparative inspiration: From puzzles with pigeons to novel discoveries with humans in risky choice. Behavioural Processes, 160, 10-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.009
Madan, C. R., Ludvig, E. A., & Spetch, M. L. (2017). The role of memory in distinguishing risky decisions from experience and description. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(10), 2048-2059. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1220608
Madan, C. R., Spetch, M. L., Machado, F. D. S., Mason, A., & Ludvig, E. A. (2021). Encoding context determines risky choice. Psychological Science, 32(5), 743-754. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620977516
Ludvig, E. A., McMillan, N., Pisklak, J. M., Simonsen, N., Mason, A., Long, J., Spetch, M. L., & Madan, C. R. (2026). Effects of initial experiences on risky choice. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79(8), 2115-2129. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218261432610
How do people remember their own lives, and why do those memories change over time?
Autobiographical memories are not fixed recordings. I study how people describe personal experiences on different occasions, which aspects of those descriptions remain consistent, and how visual perspective and social interaction shape remembering. Related work examines how people imagine possible future experiences together.
Wardell, V., Jameson, T. J., Bontkes, O. J. R., Le, M. L., Duan, T., St Jacques, P. L., Madan, C. R.*, & Palombo, D. J.* (2023). Fade in, fade out: Do shifts in visual perspective predict the consistency of real-world memories? Psychological Science, 34(8), 932-946. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231180588
Wardell, V., Jameson, T. J., St. Jacques, P. L., Madan, C. R., & Palombo, D. J. (2025). Assessing autobiographical memory consistency: Machine and human approaches. Behavior Research Methods, 57, 163. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02690-7
Dev, D. K.*, Wardell, V.*, Checknita, K. J., Te, A. A., Petrucci, A. S., Le, M. L., Madan, C. R., & Palombo, D. J. (2022). Negative emotion enhances memory for the sequential unfolding of a naturalistic experience. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(4), 510-521. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000015
Fowler, Z., Palombo, D. J., Madan, C. R., & O'Connor, B. B. (2024). The future we imagine together: The role of collaborative imagination in forming relationships. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(25), e2318292121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2318292121
Why are some words, objects, and experiences easier to remember than others?
The properties of information affect how it is encoded and retrieved. My research examines how imageability, meaning, movement, and enactment influence memory for individual items and for the relationships among them. This work connects memory with language, semantic knowledge, perception, and action.
Madan, C. R., & Singhal, A. (2012). Using actions to enhance memory: Effects of enactment, gestures, and exercise on human memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 507. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00507
Madan, C. R., Glaholt, M. G., & Caplan, J. B. (2010). The influence of item properties on association-memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 63(1), 46-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2010.03.001
Chen, Y. Y., Lambert, K. J. M., Madan, C. R., & Singhal, A. (2024). Motor-related oscillations reveal the involvement of sensorimotor processes during recognition memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 216, 108003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2024.108003
Heard, A., Madan, C. R., Protzner, A., & Pexman, P. M. (2019). Getting a grip on sensorimotor effects in lexical-semantic processing. Behaviour Research Methods, 51(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1072-1
What can the shape and complexity of the brain tell us about development, aging, health, and evolution?
I use quantitative measures of brain shape and cortical complexity to study how brain structure differs across individuals, age groups, clinical populations, and species. Much of this work uses large, openly available neuroimaging datasets rather than collecting new brain scans.
Madan, C. R., & Kensinger, E. A. (2016). Cortical complexity as a measure of age-related brain atrophy. NeuroImage, 134, 617-629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.04.029
Wang, Y., Leiberg, K., Kindred, N., Madan, C. R., Poirier, C., Petkov, C. I., Taylor, P. N., & Mota, B. (2024). Neuro-evolutionary evidence for a universal fractal primate brain shape. eLife, 12, 92080. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.92080
Krohn, S., Romanello, A., von Schwanenflug, N., Rasmussen, J. M., Buss, C., Valk, S. L., Madan, C. R., & Finke, C. (2026). Fractal analysis of brain shape formation predicts age and genetic similarity in human newborns. Nature Neuroscience, 29(1), 171-186. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02107-w
How can strategies and external tools help people learn and remember?
People use strategies, prior knowledge, and external tools to support learning and memory. I study how these supports influence what people remember, how people judge their own memory abilities, and how findings from memory research can be applied in educational and everyday settings.
Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Sumeracki, M. A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-y
Van Hoof, T. J., Sumeracki, M. A., & Madan, C. R. (2025). Science of Learning Strategy Series: Article 7, The Role of Context in Learning. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 45(3), 178-181. https://doi.org/10.1097/CEH.0000000000000601
Gopi, Y., & Madan, C. R. (2024). Subjective memory measures: An overview of three types of memory questionnaires currently in use. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77(5), 924-942. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231183855
How do research decisions affect the conclusions scientists reach?
Scientific results can depend on how researchers define variables, select measures, analyse data, and report their findings. I study these sources of variation using open datasets, reanalysis, simulation, and collaborations in which multiple researchers analyse the same data.
Silberzahn, R., Uhlmann, E. L., Martin, D. P., ... , Madan, C. R., ... , & Nosek, B. A. [65 authors] (2018). Many analysts, one dataset: Making transparent how variations in analytical choices affect results. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(3), 337-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245917747646
Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., Clelland, H. T., Kovacs, M., Schulz-Kümpel, H., Holzmeister, F., Nilsonne, G., Hoffmann, S., Kosa, L., Torma, Z. A., ..., Madan, C. R., ..., Errington, T. M., & Nosek, B. A. [492 authors] (2026). Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences. Nature, 652, 135-142. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09844-9
Brodeur, A., Valenta, D., Marcoci, A., Aparicio, J. P., Mikola, D., Barbarioli, B., Alexander, R., Deer, L., Stafford, T., Vilhuber, L., Bensch, G., ..., Madan, C. R., ... (2026). AI-assisted teams outperform AI-led teams but not human-only teams in assessing research reproducibility in quantitative social science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 123(22), e2524747123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2524747123