Expertise

Cognition, Cognitive Development, Memory, Space, Navigation, STEM Education

Biography

Nora S. Newcombe, Ph.D., is a Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University. Dr. Newcombe was educated at Antioch College, where she graduated with a major in psychology in 1972 and at Harvard University, where she received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Relations in 1976. She taught previously at Penn State University. Her research in cognition and cognitive development has centered on spatial cognition and on episodic memory, along with translational work on STEM education. She served as the PI of the NSF-funded Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC) from 2006-2018, headquartered at Temple and involving Northwestern, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania as primary partners. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Honors include the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Research in Child Development, the William James Fellow Award from APS, the Howard Crosby Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the George Miller Award and the G. Stanley Hall Awards from APA, the Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, also from APA. She has received three mentor awards, from Women in Cognitive Science, APA Division 7, and APS. She is a fellow of four divisions of the American Psychological Association (General, Experimental, Developmental, and Psychology of Women), of the Association for Psychological Science, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the University of Otago.

Curriculum Vitae | Website

• Temple Infant and Child Lab (TICL)
• Research in Spatial Cognition Lab (RISC)
• Temple Institute for Learning and Education Sciences (TILES)

Selected Publications

• Newcombe, N.S. (2024). Spatial cognition. In A. Majid and M. C. Frank (Eds.), Oxford encyclopedia of cognitive sciences. Oxford University Press.
• Newcombe, N.S., Benear, S., Ngo, C.T. & Olson, I.R. (2024). Memory in infancy and childhood. In M. Kahana & A. Wagner (Eds.), Oxford handbook on human memory. Oxford University Press.
• Ngo, C. T., Buchberger, E. S., Phuc T. U. Nguyen, Newcombe, N. S., & Werkle-Bergner, M. (2024). Building a cumulative science of memory development. Developmental Review, 72, 101119.
• Bevandić, J., Chareyron, L. J., Bachevalier, J., Cacucci, F., Genzel, L., Newcombe, N. S., Vargha-Khadem, F., Ólafsdóttir, H.F. (2024). Episodic memory development: Bridging animal and human research. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.01.020
• Jeffery, K.J., Cheng, K., Newcombe, N.S., Bingman, V.P. & Menzel, R. (2024). Unpacking the navigation toolbox: Insights from comparative cognition. Proceedings of the Royal Society B,291(2016), 20231304.
• Uttal, D.H., McKee, K., Simms, N., Hegarty, M. & Newcombe, N.S. (2024). How can we best assess spatial skills? Practical and conceptual challenges. Journal of Intelligence, 12(1), 8.
• Newcombe, N.S. (2024). What have we learned from research on the “geometric module”? Learning and Behavior, 52, 14-18.
• Tian, J., Bennett-Pierre, G., Tavassolie, N., Newcombe, N.S., Weinraub, M.,Hindman, A.GH., Newton, K.J. & Gunderson, E.A. (2024). A growth-mindset message leads parents to choose more challenging learning activities. Journal of Intelligence, 11(10), 193. 
• Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Constructing a canon for the science of learning. In C. E. Overson, C. M. Hakala, L. L. Kordonowy, & V. A. Benassi (Eds.), In their own words: What scholars and teachers want you to know about why and how to apply the science of learning in your academic setting(pp. 190-199). Society for the Teaching of Psychology. https://teachpsych.org/ebooks/itow
• Jaeger, A.J., Weisberg, S.M., Nazareth, A. & Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Using a picture (or a thousand words) for supporting spatial knowledge of a complex virtual environment. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 8, Article 48 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00503-z 
• Viegut, A. A., Resnick, I., Miller-Cotto, D., Newcombe, N. S., & Jordan, N. C. (2023). Tracking informal fraction knowledge and its correlates across first grade. Developmental Psychology, 59(10), 1739–1756. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001581
• Benear, S.L., Popal, H.S., Zheng, Y., Tanriverdi, B., Murty, V.P., Perlman, S.B., Olson, I.R., & Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Setting boundaries: Development of neural and behavioral event cognition in early childhood. Developmental Science, 26,6, e13409.
• Bennett-Pierre, G., Weinraub, M., Newcombe, N.S. & Gunderson, E.  (2023). “This is hard!": Children’s and parents’ talk about difficulty during dyadic interactions. Developmental Psychology, 9(7), 1268-1282.
• Nguyen, K. V., Tansan, M., & Newcombe, N. S. (2023). Studying the development of navigation using virtual environments. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24, 1- 16.
• Brucato, M., Frick, A., Pichelmann, S., Nazareth, A., & Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Measuring spatial perspective taking: Analysis of four measures using item response theory. Topics in Cognitive Science, 15, 46-74. 
• Newcombe, N.S., Hegarty, M., & Uttal, D. (2023). Building a cognitive science of human variation: Individual differences in spatial navigation. Topics in Cognitive Science, 15, 6- 14. 
• Resnick, I.R., Goldwater, M. & Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Cross-national differences in the relation between reasoning about fraction and decimal magnitudes, reasoning proportionally, and mathematics achievement. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 9, 222-239.
• Brunec, I. K. Nantais, M.M., Sutton, J.E., Epstein, R.A., Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Exploration patterns shape cognitive map learning. Cognition, 233, 105360.
• Weisberg, S.M., Schinazi, V.R., Ferrario, A., & Newcombe, N.S. (2023). Evaluating the effects of a programming error on a virtual environment measure of spatial navigation behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49, 575-589.
• Tansan, M., Nguyen, K.V. & Newcombe, N.S. (2022). Spatial navigation in childhood and aging. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 4, 253-272.
• Miller-Cotto, D., Booth, J. & Newcombe, N.S. (2022). Sketching and verbal self-explanation: Do they help middle school children solve science problems? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 36, 919-935.
• Benear, S.L., Horwath, E.A., Cowan, E., Camacho, M.C., Ngo, C.T., Newcombe, N.S., Olson, I.R., Perlman, S.B. & Murty, V.P. (2022). Children show adult-like hippocampal pattern similarity. for familiar but not novel events. Brain Research, 1791, 147991. 
• Tian, J., Ren, K., Weinraub, M., Newcombe, N.S., Vandell, D. & Gunderson, E.A. (2023). Tracing the origins of the STEM gender gap: The contribution of childhood spatial skills. Developmental Science, 26, e13302.
• Ren, K., Wang^, Y., Weinraub, M., Newcombe, N.S. & Gunderson, E.A. (2022). Fathers’ and mothers’ praise and spatial language during play with first graders: Patterns of interaction and relations to math achievement, Developmental Psychology, 58, 1931-1946.
• Brucato, M., Nazareth, A. & Newcombe, N.S. (2022). Longitudinal development of cognitive mapping from childhood to adolescence. 
  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 219, 105412. 

Courses Taught

Undergraduate

• Introduction to Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Research Methods
• Cognitive Development
• Memory
• Infancy
• Adolescence
• Cognitive Bases of Education 

Graduate

• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Development
• Developmental Theory
• Memory and Memory Development
• Spatial Cognition and Development
• Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience