“Ever since I was an undergraduate student, I have wanted to teach at a small liberal arts college, so I am not exaggerating when I say that this is my dream job. I have been at Goucher since 2003 and am excited to work here every day.”
Thomas Ghirardelli
ProfessorPsychology
Thomas Ghirardelli is a Professor of Psychology at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. He completed his doctorate at The Johns Hopkins University and a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Prior to his arrival at Goucher he worked as a Research Psychologist at the U. S. Army Research Laboratory and taught at Johns Hopkins and Morgan State University. At Goucher, he teaches the intermediate course in sensation and perception, an advanced seminar in experimental psychology with varied topics related to attention and perception, and statistical methods.
Dr. Ghirardelli’s research concerns the topic of attention, or how we selectively process only some of the sensory information available to us at any time. Some of the questions of interest that he is investigating in the lab include: What information do we attend to if we can’t attend to it all? How do we select that information, and is it up to us to choose? What happens to the information that is not selected? He typically has four to six students working on his research team each semester. His primary goal is for these students to gain practical “hands-on” experience in conducting research in psychology. His students also develop enhanced oral and written communication skills, through producing quality research to present at appropriate conferences and ultimately papers suitable for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Research, Scholarship, Creative Work in Progress
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Engelke, L., Goffi, E., Werkheiser, A., & Monthie, K. (in preparation). Visual search in a three-dimensional “real world” stimulus display.
Publications
Kelley, T.D., Cassenti, D.N., Marusich, L. R., & Ghirardelli, T.G. (2017). Numerosity estimates for attended and unattended items in visual search. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 79, 1336-1351. doi:10.3758/s13414-017-1296-7
Cassenti, D.N., Kelley, T.D., & Ghirardelli, T.G. (2010). Underestimating numerosity of items in visual search tasks. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 111, 379-398. doi: 10.2466/04.22.24.27.PMS.111.5.379-398.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Mills, C. B., Zilioli, M. K. C., Bailey, L. P., & Kretschmar, P. K. (2010). Synesthesia affects verification of simple arithmetic equations. Journal of General Psychology, 137, 175-189. doi:10.1080/00221301003645152
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Scharine, A. A. (2009). Auditory-visual interactions. In C.E. Rash, M.B. Russo, T. Letowski, & E. Schmeisser (Eds)., Helmet-mounted displays: Sensation, perception and cognition issues (pp. 599-618). Ft. Rucker, AL: US Army Aeromedical Research Lab.
Ghirardelli, T. G., Harper, W. H., Scribner, D. R., & Malkin, F. J. (2002). Special Operations Forces (SOF) tactical computer investigation. Army Research Laboratory Technical Report (ARL-TR-2637). Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD: U.S. Army Research Laboratory. (Distribution Limited)
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Egeth, H. E. (1998). Goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in cross-dimensional texture segregation. Perception & Psychophysics, 60, 826-838. doi:10.3758/BF03206066
Grandison, T. D., Ghirardelli, T. G., & Egeth, H. E. (1997). Beyond similarity: Masking of the target is sufficient to cause the attentional blink. Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 266-274. doi:10.3758/BF03211894
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Folk, C. L. (1996). Attention allocation in a stereoscopic display: Evidence for a depth-blind attentional spotlight. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 81-86. doi:10.3758/BF03210744
1Underlined names indicate Goucher student coauthors
Conference Papers & Panel Participation
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Nguyen, C., Roy, O., Ross, E., Lichti, J., & Schwartz, C. (2022, March). Saliency determines efficiency of search in a three-dimensional search task. Poster presented at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, NY.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Fraser, C., Monthie, K., Rubin, H., Woodson, M., Lion, E., Willie, Y., Brodsky, Z., Mooi, W-Y., Struewing, E., Price, J., & Vacher, A. (2019, November). Visual Search in a 2D display with pictorial depth cues. Poster presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Montreal, QC, Canada.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Brodsky, Z., Fraser, C., Monthie, K., Mooi, W-Y., Rubin, H., Struewing, E., Woodson, M., Lion, E., & Willie, Y. (2019, March). Does grasping require focal attention? Poster presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, NY.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Goffi, E., Goldrich, S., Engelke, L., Monthie, K., & Werkheiser, A. (2017, November). Do visually salient singletons capture attention in a grasping task? Poster presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Jones, A., Werkheiser, A., Dunn, K., Goffi, E., Goldrich, S., Monthie, K., Leffers, J., Fuller, G., Kolb, E., Moore, A., & Engelke, L. (2017, March). Are meaningful letter strings processed like sentences in RSVP? Poster presented at the 88th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, MA.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Coakley, G., Lawson, K., Marcus, T., Spitzer-Morton, C., Cosgrove-Davies, A., Postel, K., & Wheeler, K. (2013, March). What is the effect of emotional pictures on letter processing in RSVP? Poster presented at the 84th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York City, NY.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Marcus, T., Cosgrove-Davies, A., Lawson, K. & Matthews, K. (2011, November). Visual search in a three-dimensional “real world” stimulus display. Poster presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Seattle, WA.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Eaton, S., & Matthews, K. (2010, November). Meaningful strings boost partial report but not whole report performance in RSVP. Poster presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, MO.
1Attarha, M., & Ghirardelli, T. G. (2009, November). Configural asymmetries depend on orientation: Left-right targets are distinct from other orientations. Poster presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, MA.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Attarha, M., Talleda, M., Zilioli, M., Kretschmar, P., & Bailey, L. (2008, November). Practice reduces the Attentional Blink. Poster presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Clark, M., & Hurd, M. (2007, November). Synesthesia speeds judgments of numerical representation in simple arithmetic equations. Poster presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, CA.
Cassenti, D. N., Kelley, T. D., & Ghirardelli, T. G., (2006, July). Awareness yet underestimation of distractors in feature searches. Poster presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
1Masciocchi, C. M., Ramos, A. L., Ghirardelli, T. G., & Dark, V. J. (2006, May). Incongruously colored objects do not draw top-down attention. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
1Ghirardelli, T. G., Cassenti, D. N., Kelley, T. D., Abend, M. B., Piper, B., & Stellwag, A. (2006, March). Incidental memory for numerosity of items in a visual search task. Poster presented at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Baltimore, MD.
French, J., Ghirardelli, T.G., Swoboda, J., Ho, S., Nguyen, H., Tokarcik, L., Walrath, J., Winkler, R. (2003, May). Modes of control of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). Paper presented at the Army Research Laboratory Collaborative Technology Alliances Annual Symposium, College Park, MD.
Ghirardelli, T. G., Vaughan, B. D., & Karsh, R. (2000, November). Cuing of attention to military targets in naturalistic scenes. Poster presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Weingartner, H. J. (1997, November). The Attentional blink in detoxified alcoholics. Poster presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Philadelphia, PA.
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Egeth, H. E. (1995, November). Are singletons special? Evidence from cross-dimensional texture segregation. Poster presented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Los Angeles, CA.
Ghirardelli, T. G., Grandison, T. D., & Egeth, H. E. (1995, May). Post-target masking and the attentional blink. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Egeth, H. E. (1994, April). What triggers the "attentional blink"? Paper presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Providence, RI.
Ghirardelli, T. G., & Folk, C. L. (1993, April). Is the "spotlight" of attention depth-blind? Paper presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Arlington, VA.
1Underlined names indicate Goucher student coauthors
Academic or Professional Associations
Member, Association for Psychological Science
Member, Psychonomic Society
Member, Society for the Teaching of Psychology
Fellow, Eastern Psychological Association
Other Professional or Scholarly Activity
Chair, Program Committee, Division 3 (Experimental Psychology) of American Psychological Association, 2010-2011
Member, Board of Directors, Eastern Psychological Association, 2007-2010.
Chair, Local Arrangements Committee, Eastern Psychological Association, 2005-2006.
Member, Program Committee, Eastern Psychological Association, 2001-2004.
Ad hoc Reviewer for Perception & Psychophysics, Teaching of Psychology, Consciousness and Cognition, and Psychological Reports.