William P. Needham, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology
School of Natural and Social Sciences

Office: Nat. Sci. 1024
Tel: (914) 251-6653
Fax: (914) 251-6635
Email: bill.needham@purchase.edu

Education

• B.S. Chemistry, 1968, Boston College
• M.L.S., 1974, URI
• M.A., 1982, and Ph.D., 1987, Experimental Psychology, Northeastern University.

Areas of Expertise

Cognitive psychology; language processing; reasoning; memory.

Courses Taught

Cognitive Psychology, Psychology of Language, Physiological Psychology, Sensation and Perception, Experimental Psychology, Statistics, Psychology Junior Seminar, Introduction to Psychology

Research Interests

Information structure in language production and comprehension; differences between skilled and unskilled readers in text processing; memory for text and discourse; transfer in reasoning and problem solving.

Selected Publications

Needham, W.P. (1990). Semantic structure, information structure and intonation in discourse production. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 455-468.

Needham, W.P. (1992). Limits on literal processing during idiom interpretation. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 21, 1-16.

Needham, W.P., & Amado, C.A. (1995). Facilitation and transfer with narrative thematic versions of the THOG task. Psychological Research, 58, 67-73.