W. Burt Thompson

Dr. W. Burt Thompson is a Professor of Psychology at Niagara University within the College of Arts and Sciences. He began teaching part-time in 1985 and joined full-time as an Assistant Professor in 1987. His research focuses on human learning, memory, and perception, particularly factors affecting eyewitness memory, face perception, and identification accuracy.

His Memory and Cognition lab is located in room 107 of the DePaul science building. Students in his lab explore how people interpret scientific evidence and statistical results, contributing to publications and conference presentations. Recent projects examine confidence in research findings, the impact of treatment explanations on belief in anomalous results, and collaborative analysis of religiosity-well-being relationships.

Dr. Thompson earned his Ph.D. (1985) and M.A. (1982) in Experimental Psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a B.S. (1980) in Psychology from Nebraska Wesleyan University. He teaches courses including Introductory Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Senior Seminar, integrating his research into special topics courses.