Faculty

Academic Interests: Teaching and research are not, and should not be seen as a dichotomy or as competing priorities. My teaching experiences have opened new research areas involving students' procrastination and the prevention of plagiarism. My research program provides opportunities for students to learn about the process of conducting real research, and presenting it at local and national conferences. Such opportunities better prepare them for entry into quality graduate programs or their chosen careers. I continually attempt to challenge my students, in both my classes and my laboratory, to achieve more than they thought they could.

Research: Memory (especially memory illusions); procrastination; and plagiarism.

Research in Vincent Prohaska's laboratory centers on two major topics: Human Memory Processes and Procrastination.

Human Memory Processes. Our research (with former students Michael G. Ainette and Debbie Del Valle) has been examining the processes responsible for the creation of memory illusions - memories for events and experiences that never really happened. We are using a modification of the Deese/Roediger/McDermott paradigm. In this paradigm, people are presented with lists of word and they incorrectly remember certain words as having been on the lists.

Procrastination (or, people's tendencies to delay beginning or completing a project on time). We have been looking at people's delays in health-related behaviors (with former student Diana Yaya-Cabrera), in approaching aversive tasks (with former student Aaron Velez), and in the estimation of the time needed to complete a task (with former students Daisy Rosario and Rosana Arteta).

Honors: Lehman College Award for Excellence in Teaching, "Teacher of the Year," 1997; Honorary Member, Lehman College Chapter, Golden Key National Honor Society; 2000, Lehman College Performance Excellence Award, 2000; Regional Faculty Advisor Award, Psi Chi, 2000; Certificate of Appreciation, Society for the Teaching of Psychology (Division 2 of American Psychological Association) 2001; Florence L. Denmark National Faculty Advisor Award from Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology, 2001.