Allegra Smith

About

I am an Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I research and teach technical and professional communication (TPC), document design, online writing instruction, and feminist research methodologies. My current focus is investigating the user experiences (UX) of older adults (age 70+) with desktop and mobile technologies, as well as architecting high-impact learning experiences for undergraduate students in TPC.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Computer science
• Audiology

Selected publications

• Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span.

  Psychology and Aging · 2002-01-01 · 1770 citations

  article

  The authors investigated the distinctiveness and interrelationships among visuospatial and verbal memory processes in short-term, working, and long-term memories in 345 adults. Beginning in the 20s, a continuous, regular decline occurs for processing-intensive tasks (e.g., speed of processing, working memory, and long-term memory), whereas verbal knowledge increases across the life span. There is little differentiation in the cognitive architecture of memory across the life span. Visuospatial an…

  PublisherDOI

• Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span.

  Psychology and Aging · 2002-01-01 · 174 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The effect of warnings on false memories in young and older adults

  Memory & Cognition · 2002-10-01 · 161 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Item-specific processing reduces false memories

  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · 2004-12-01 · 129 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Relative Numerousness Judgment and Summation in Young and Old Western Lowland Gorillas.

  Journal of comparative psychology · 2005-01-01 · 81 citations

  article

  The relationship between age, relative numerousness judgment, and summation was investigated in 11 Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Experiments 1 and 2 evaluated the gorillas' ability to select the larger of 2 food quantities before and with training. The majority of gorillas did not reliably select the larger quantity in Experiment 1 until receiving training to do so in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 evaluated their ability to select the larger of 2 pairs of quantities. All goril…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• RESEARCH TRAINING IN COGNITIVE AGING

  NIH · $7.0M · 1988–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Denise C. Park

  16 shared

• Julie L. Earles

  Florida Atlantic University

  9 shared

• J. Thomas Puglisi

  Leibniz University Hannover

  7 shared

• Denise C. Park

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  6 shared

• Katie E. Cherry

  Louisiana State University

  5 shared

• David P. McCabe

  Colorado State University

  5 shared

• Eugene Winograd

  4 shared

• William N. Dudley

  University of North Carolina at Greensboro

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Hugh Burns Best Dissertation Award (2022)
• Class of 1940 W. Roane Beard Outstanding Teaching Award (202…
• CIOS Award (for LMC 3415: Content Strategy) (2026)
• CIOS Award (for LMC 3813: Content Strategy for Social Media)…
• CIOS Award (for LMC 3206: Communication & Culture) (2024)

Similar researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology

• Philip Auslanderh-28
• Richmond Wongh-20
• Andre Brockh-15