Walter Sá
Associate Professor - Cognitive Science
- B.A., University of Western Ontario
- M.A., Ph.D., University of Toronto
Office: 2210 AuSable Hall
Phone: (616) 331-3705
Email: [email protected]
Specialization
Cognitive Psychology
Courses Taught
PSY 101 - Introductory Psychology
PSY 311 - Controversial Issues in Psychology
PSY 325 - Educational Psychology
PSY 365 - Cognition
PSY 399 - Independent Readings
PSY 499 - Independent Study & Research
Research interests
My interests generally revolve around exploring individual differences in critical thinking and bias. A framework I like to apply in this research makes a distinction between Thinking Dispositions (e.g., Actively Openminded Thinking or Need for Cognition) and Cognitive Ability (e.g., an Aptitude measure / IQ). A key interest I have is how much performance variability across various types of thinking tasks can be attributed to thinking dispositional type of measures once cognitive ability is statistically controlled.
Publications
Sá, W. C., Kelley, C., Ho, C. & Stanovich, K. E. (2005). Thinking about personal theories: Individual differences in the coordination of theory and evidence. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1149-1161.
Stanovich, K. E., Sá, W. C. & West, R. F. (2004). Individual differences in thinking, reasoning, and decision making. In Leighton, J. P. & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.) The Nature of Reasoning. Cambridge University Press.
Sá, W. C., & Stanovich, K. E. (2001). The domain specificity and generality of mental contamination: Accuracy and projection in judgments of mental content. British Journal of Psychology, 92, 281-302.
Sá, W. C., West, R. F. & Stanovich, K. E. (1999). The domain specificity and generality of belief bias: Searching for a generalizable critical thinking skill. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 497-510.