Grace Truong

Dr. Grace Truong is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology within the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. She completed her PhD in Psychology from UBC under the supervision of Dr. Todd Handy and maintains an active research program as an affiliated researcher.

Her educational background includes a PhD in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Truong's research primarily focuses on how self-relevance and ownership influence attentional, perceptual, and memorial processes. Her work explores the cognitive mechanisms underlying how we process information related to ourselves and objects we own. She has published extensively on topics including attentional prioritization of self-relevant information, the psychological sense of ownership, and how forbidden objects capture attention and enhance memory. Her research combines cognitive psychology with neuroscience approaches to understand these phenomena at both behavioral and neural levels. She also has interests in the scholarship of teaching and learning, applying psychological principles to improve educational practices.

Analysis of her publications reveals consistent themes across cognitive psychology, particularly examining how self-relevance modulates attention and perception. Her work often bridges theoretical cognitive psychology with practical applications, including understanding hoarding behaviors through collaboration with the UBC Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding. The research demonstrates sophisticated experimental approaches to studying self-processing and ownership effects, with particular emphasis on temporal perception, attentional capture, and memory enhancement for self-relevant stimuli.

• Attentional mechanisms related to self-processing
• Temporal perception of owned objects
• Memory enhancement for forbidden objects
• Embodied cognition and ownership
• Visual processing and self-relevance
• Cognitive neuroscience approaches to self-study

Dr. Truong has received recognition for her scholarly contributions through publications in high-impact journals including the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychological Science. Her work has established important connections between self-processing and fundamental cognitive mechanisms.

Dr. Truong has been actively involved in teaching undergraduate psychology courses at UBC, including Introduction to Biological and Cognitive Psychology (PSYC 101), Research Methods (PSYC 217), Analysis of Behavioural Data (PSYC 218), and Questioning Psychological Science in the Media (PSYC 216). Her teaching spans multiple sections across various academic terms from 2018 through 2024, demonstrating her significant contribution to undergraduate education in psychology. She has taught both in-person and web-oriented course formats, adapting to changing educational environments while maintaining high-quality instruction.

Dr. Truong collaborates with several researchers, including Dr. Sheila Woody at the UBC Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding and Dr. Wil Cunningham at the University of Toronto, extending her research impact beyond her home institution. Her work demonstrates how fundamental cognitive processes relate to real-world phenomena and potential clinical applications.