Eric Ruthruff
Professor
Area Head Cognition, Brain & Behavior
- Email:
- ruthruff@unm.edu
- Education:
- Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1995
- Personal Website
- Lab Website
Research Area/s:
Cognition, Brain and Behavior
Research Interests:
- Attention capture
- Cognitive control
- Automaticity
- Emotion
- Cognitive Training
- Dual-task performance
- Cognitive aging
- Memory
- EEG & Neuroscience
- Mathematical modeling
Profile:
Accepting students? Dr. Ruthruff is accepting students for Fall 2025. Please email Dr. Ruthruff if you are interested in pursuing graduate studies.
Cognitive psychology. In general, I am interested in how the mind controls itself. Specific research interests include spatial attention, task switching, and dual-task performance.
I am also interested in cognitive aging, neuroscience, and mathematical modeling. I am currently seeking a graduate student to begin in the Fall of 2019. Interested students are invited to contact me for further information about research opportunities.
Selected Publications
Maquestiaux, F. & Ruthruff, E. (in press). Testing the Over-Reliance on Central Attention (ORCA) Hypothesis: Do Older Adults Have Difficulty Automatizing Especially Easy Tasks? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001020
Maxwell, J., Joseph, M., Ruthruff, E. (2021). Capacity-free automatic processing of facial expressions of emotion. Emotion. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000965
Maxwell, J., Gaspelin, N., & Ruthruff E. (2021). No identification of abrupt onsets that capture attention: evidence against a unified model of spatial attention. Psychological Research, 85, 2119-2135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01367-4
Jung, K., Martin, T., & Ruthruff, E. (2021). Electrophysiological Examination of Response-Related Interference While Dual-Tasking: Is It Motoric or Attentional? Psychological Research, 85, 660-678.
Lien, M.C., Allen, P. A., & Ruthruff, E. (2021). Multiple Routes to Word Recognition: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials. Psychological Research, 85, 151-180.
Ruthruff, E., Faulks, M., Maxwell, J. W., & Gaspelin, N. (2020). Attentional dwelling and capture by color singletons. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 82, 3048-3064.
Maquestiaux, F., Lyphout-Spitz, M, Ruthruff, E. (2020). Ideomotor compatibility enables automatic response selection. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27, 742-450.
Ruthruff, E., Kuit, D., Maxwell, J. W., & Gaspelin, N. (2019). Can Capture by Abrupt Onsets be Suppressed? Visual Cognition, 27, 276-290. DOI:10.1080/13506285.2019.1604593
Ruthruff, E. & Gaspelin, N. (2018). Immunity to attentional capture at ignored locations. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 80, 325-336. 10.3758/s13414-017-1440-4
Ruthruff, E., Lien, M.-C. (2017). Aging and Attention. Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. doi:10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_227-1
Noosen, B., Lien, M.-C., and Ruthruff, E. (2014). An electrophysiological study of attention capture by salience: Does rarity enable capture? Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 3, 346-371.
Lien, M.-C., Taylor, R.; Ruthruff, E. (2014). Capture by fear revisited: An electrophysiological investigation. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 873-888.
Ruthruff, E. (2013). The Psychological Refractory Period. Encyclopedia of the Mind. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks.
Gaspelin, N., Ruthruff, E., & Pashler, H. (2013). Divided attention: An undesirable difficulty in memory retention. Memory & Cognition, 41, 978-988.
Courses Taught
PSY 265 Cognitive Psychology
PSY 450 Belief in Weird Things
PSY 450/650 The Psychology of False Beliefs
PSY 450/650 Seminar on Attention
PSY 491/492 Senior Honors
- PSY 561 Cognitive Processes
Lab
Former Students:
Julia Keller (2015) -- Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University
Nick Gaspelin (2014) -- Assistant Professor at SUNY-Binghamton
Kyung-Hun Jung (2013) -- Assistant Professor at Southern Polytechnic State University
Current Students:
Kamille Hackett
Josh Maxwell
Danielle Sanchez-Combs
