Lisa Emery

Lisa Emery is a Professor in the Department of Psychology within Appalachian State University's College of Arts and Sciences. She leads the Adult Cognitive & Emotional Development Lab and serves as core faculty in the AGELabs (Aging, Growth, & Experience) research group, which unites experimental psychologists studying developmental processes across the lifespan.

Her research centers on cognitive-emotional interactions in adulthood, investigating how emotional regulation strategies and working memory capacity influence episodic memory construction and future thinking. Key interests include adult development and aging, emotion-cognition interplay, autobiographical memory specificity, and age-related positivity effects. Her work bridges experimental psychology with real-world applications for cognitive health in older adults.

Analysis of her 2008-2014 publications reveals consistent focus on aging and cognition, with increasing emphasis on emotion regulation's role in memory processes. Her research employs diverse methodologies including behavioral experiments, neuroimaging (fMRI), and ecological tasks, contributing significantly to understanding how older adults process emotional information and construct mental representations of past and future events.

Professor Emery actively mentors students in research design and execution, with several student-led projects resulting in publications and conference presentations. Her lab fosters collaborative relationships within AGELabs and produces methodologically rigorous work applicable to cognitive aging interventions.

The Adult Cognitive & Emotional Development Lab operates within AGELabs' framework, conducting studies on emotion regulation strategies, working memory limitations, and their combined impact on memory processes across adulthood. Current projects examine how online emotion regulation affects emotional memory recall and how lifespan differences in cognitive resources shape autobiographical memory construction.