About

Mary Hegarty is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her areas of specialization include comprehension, reasoning, spatial cognition, and individual differences. She is involved in applied linguistics and has a faculty profile at the university, indicating her active engagement in research and teaching within these fields. Her work focuses on understanding how individuals process and interpret information, with particular attention to spatial cognition and reasoning skills, contributing to the broader understanding of cognitive processes related to language and comprehension.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cognitive psychology
• Data Mining
• Neuroscience
• Engineering
• Data science
• Applied psychology
• Management science
• Communication
• Algorithm
• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive science

Selected publications

• Age-Related Changes in Spatial Navigation Are Evident by Midlife and Differ by Sex

  Psychological Science · 2021 · 54 citations

  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Cognitive psychology

  Accumulating evidence suggests that distinct aspects of successful navigation-path integration, spatial-knowledge acquisition, and navigation strategies-change with advanced age. Yet few studies have established whether navigation deficits emerge early in the aging process (prior to age 65) or whether early age-related deficits vary by sex. Here, we probed healthy young adults (ages 18-28) and midlife adults (ages 43-61) on three essential aspects of navigation. We found, first, that path-integration ability shows negligible effects of sex or age. Second, robust sex differences in spatial-knowledge acquisition are observed not only in young adulthood but also, although with diminished effect, at midlife. Third, by midlife, men and women show decreased ability to acquire spatial knowledge and increased reliance on taking habitual paths. Together, our findings indicate that age-related changes in navigation ability and strategy are evident as early as midlife and that path-integration ability is spared, to some extent, in the transition from youth to middle age.

  DOI

• The Role of Spatial Cognition inMedicine

  Psychology Press eBooks · 2020 · 91 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive science
  • Cognitive psychology

  Spatial cognition is central to understanding medical images, including those produced by CT, MRI, X-Ray, and ultrasound. Zero-order correlations indicated that spatial ability measures were related to initial performance and persisted throughout the learning trials, despite the attenuation of individual differences in task performance. The admissions test used in dentistry schools in the United States includes a spatial abilities tests known as the Perceptual Aptitude Test, which includes items such as judging the relative sizes of angles, and imagining the folding and unfolding of pieces of paper. A follow-up study revealed that the effects of spatial ability can be moderated by the characteristics of the computer simulation. Spatial understanding was enhanced when learner-controlled rotation was permitted via a hand-held mouse. Research on learning anatomy also provides information about the nature of internal spatial representations of 3-D structures.

  PublisherDOI

• Workshop on Quantification, Communication, and Interpretation of Uncertainty in Simulation and Data Science

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2020 · 4 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Data Mining
  • Computer Science

  Modern science, technology, and politics are all permeated by data that comes from people, measurements, or computational processes. While this data is often incomplete, corrupt, or lacking in sufficient accuracy and precision, explicit consideration of uncertainty is rarely part of the computational and decision making pipeline. The CCC Workshop on Quantification, Communication, and Interpretation of Uncertainty in Simulation and Data Science explored this problem, identifying significant shortcomings in the ways we currently process, present, and interpret uncertain data. Specific recommendations on a research agenda for the future were made in four areas: uncertainty quantification in large-scale computational simulations, uncertainty quantification in data science, software support for uncertainty computation, and better integration of uncertainty quantification and communication to stakeholders.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How anxiety and growth mindset are linked to navigation ability: Impacts of exploration and GPS use

  Journal of Environmental Psychology · 2020 · 67 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  • Applied psychology
  DOI

Recent grants

• Emerging Research - Empirical Research - Representation Translation with Concrete and Virtual Models in Chemistry

  NSF · $686k · 2010–2014

• CGV: Large: Collaborative Research: Modeling, Display, and Understanding Uncertainty in Simulations for Policy Decision Making

  NSF · $560k · 2012–2017

• ITR: 3-D Visualizations for Medical Education

  NSF · $383k · 2003–2007

• Collaborative Research: Mechanisms of Visuospatial thinking in STEM

  NSF · $503k · 2017–2021

• Collaborative research: Alternative strategies for problem solving in science

  NSF · $355k · 2007–2011

Frequent coauthors

• Andrew T. Stull

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  22 shared

• Chuanxiuyue He

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  20 shared

• Richard E. Mayer

  20 shared

• Daniel R. Montello

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  19 shared

• Alexander P. Boone

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  18 shared

• Mike Stieff

  16 shared

• N. Hari Narayanan

  15 shared

• Antoine Coutrot

  Laboratoire d'Informatique en Images et Systèmes d'Information

  15 shared

Similar researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara

• Craig Hawkerh-169
• Richard Mayerh-147
• Guillermo C. Bazanh-141
• Steven P. DenBaarsh-124
• Kenneth S. Kosikh-120