Heather Kleider-Offutt
Associate Professor Neuroscience, Psychology- Education
Ph.D., Arizona State University; 2001
- Specializations
Eyewitness Memory, False Memory and Memory Suggestibility, Face Recognition, Heuristic Recollection Processes and Stereotyping as it Relates to Memory Error
- Biography
My core research program focuses on questions pertinent to the psychology of law with a particular emphasis on examining heuristic processing (e.g. using stereotypes) and individual-difference factors (e.g., working memory capacity) that contribute to errors in source memory and decision-making in an applied context. Processing style and individual differences are of interest to me because of the important role they play in the criminal justice arena. Some of my recent work includes jury-decision making, police officers decision-making when they are emotionally aroused, and lineup misidentifications that relate to facial structure and ethnic stereotypes. Another related and exciting area of research for my laboratory is focused on moral decision-making and investigating the cognitive underpinnings that motivate people to intervene in life or death situations (e.g. run away trolley type problems) or to support death-penalty decisions (or not).
Another focus of my research is to understand the cognitive mechanisms that promote false memories for events. I am specifically interested in how vivid imagery facilitates false memory. I approach this question using traditionaleyewitness-type paradigms but also employ fMRI brain scans to support the behavioral findings. Through great collaborations with the Neuroscience institute at GSU my colleges and I have current papers, grants and projects underway that all intersect Cognitive psychology with Neuroscience.
An overarching goal of my research is to generate knowledge that translates to “real-word” contexts. My stellar graduate students and research assistants are an integral part of all of my projects.
Three main foci of my research program are complementary investigations of factors that promote event memory recollection error, factors that influence face recognition error and factors that promote biases in decision-making. Examples of some study findings below:
Black male face-type examples: Atypical (left) and Stereotypical (right)
Stereotypical featured faces are more often misidentified as a criminal
expectations influence memory 
Testing memory for Crime sequences 
- Publications
Aharoni, E., Kleider-Offutt, H. M., & Brosnan, S. (2021). Correctional “free lunch? Cost neglect increases punishment in prosecutors. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.778293
Bond, A. D., Washburn, D. A., & Kleider, O. H. M. (2021). Like father, like son: Stereotypical black facial features in children causing trouble. Applied Cognitive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3835
Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Meacham, A., Branum-Martin, L., Capodanno, M. (2021). What’s in a face? The role of facial features in ratings of dominance, threat, and stereotypicality. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications. DOI : 10.1186/s41235-021-00319-9
Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Stevens, B., Capodanno, M. (2021). He did it! Or Did I Just See Him on Twitter? Social Media Influence on Eyewitness Identification. Memory. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1953080.
Bohil, C. J., Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Killingsworth, C & Meacham, A (2020) Training away face-type bias: Perception and decisions about emotional expression in stereotypically Black faces. Psychological Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01420-2
Aharoni, E., Kleider-Offutt, H. M., & Brosnan, S., Fernandes, S. (2020). Slippery scales: Cost prompts, but not benefit prompts, modulate sentencing recommendations in laypeople PlOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236764
Knuycky, L., Balaji, T., Capodanno, M., Kleider-Offutt, H. (2020). Our Journey to Establishing an Industry Partnership with Academia. Design Management Institute Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/drev.12245
Aharoni, E., Kleider-Offutt, H. M., & Brosnan, S. (2019). The price of justice: Cost neglect increases criminal punishment recommendations. Legal and Criminological Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12161
Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Grant, A., & Turner, J. A. (2019). Common cortical areas involved in both auditory and visual imageries for novel stimuli. Experimental Brain Research.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05492-4Kleider-Offutt, H. M. (2019). Afraid of one afraid of all: When threat associations spread across face-types. The Journal of General Psychology, 146(1), 93-110.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2018.1540397Aharoni, E., Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Brosnan, S. & Watzek, J. (2018). Justice at Any Cost? The Impact of Cost/Benefit Salience on Criminal Punishment Judgments. Behavioral Sciences and the Law. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2388.
Clevinger,A. Kleider-Offutt., H.M. & Tone, E. (2018). In the eyes of the law: Associations among fear of negative evaluation, race, and feelings of safety in the presence of police officers. Personality and Individual Differences, 135, 201 - 206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.06.041
Kleider-Offutt, H. M., Bond, A. D., Williams, S. E., & Bohil, C. J. (2018). When a face type is perceived as threatening: Using general recognition theory to understand biased categorization of Afrocentric faces. Memory & Cognition, 46(5), 716–728.https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13421-018-0801-0
Kleider-Offutt, H.M., Knuycky, L. R., Clevinger,A.,& Capodanno, M.(2017). Wrongful convictions and stereotypical Black features: When a face-type facilitates misidentification. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 22(2), 350–358. https://doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12105
Kleider-Offutt, H.M., A. Bond, & S.A. Hegerty (2016). Black stereotypical features: When a face-type can get you in trouble. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(1), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963721416667916 -Invited paper.
Kleider-Offutt, H.M., Clevinger,A.,& Bond, A.(2016). Working memory and cognitive load in the legal system: Influences on police shooting decisions, interrogation and jury decisions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5(4), 426–433. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.04.008 -Invited paper.
Adams, H., Kleider-Offutt, H.M., D. Bell & D. Washburn (2016). The effects of prayer on attention resource availability and attention bias. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(2), 117–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1206612
Kleider-Offutt, H.M., Cavrak, S.E., & Knuycky, L.R. (2015). Do police officer’s beliefs about emotional witnesses influence the questions they ask? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29, 314-319. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.3111
Kleider-Offutt, H.M., Swartout, K. & Capodanno, M. (2015). When suicide calls are a regular event: Urban Police perspectives on dealing with suicide, predictors and need for training. FBI Compendium on Law Enforcement and Suicide, section 4.
Cavrak, S.E.& Kleider-Offutt, H.M., (2015). Pictures are worth a thousand words and a moral decision or two: Religious symbols prime moral judgments. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 25, 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2014.921111
Knuycky, L.R., Kleider, H.M., & Cavrak, S.E., (2014). Lineup Misidentifications: When Being “Prototypically Black” is Perceived as Criminal. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28,39-46. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2954
Kleider, H.M., Cavrak, S. E., & Knuycky, L. R. (2012). Looking like a criminal: Stereotypical Black facial features promote face categorization error. Memory & Cognition,40, 1200-1213. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13421-012-0229-x
Kleider, H.M., Knuycky, L. R., & Cavrak, S. E. (2012). Deciding the fate of others: The cognitive underpinnings of racially biased juror-decision-making. The Journal of General Psychology, 139, 175-193. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2012.686462
Kleider, H.M., Parrott, D.J. & King, T. Z. (2010). Shooting behavior: How working memory, arousal and affect influence police officer shoot decisions. Applied Cognitive Psychology,24, 707-717. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1580
Kleider, H.M. & Parrott, D. J. (2009). Aggressive shooting behavior: How working memory and threat influence shoot decisions. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 494-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.007
Flemming, T.M., Beran, M.J., Thompson, R.K., Kleider, H. M. & Washburn, D.A.(2008). “What meaning means for same and different: Analogical reasoning in humans, chimpanzees and Rhesus monkeys”. Journal of comparative Psychology, 2, 176-185. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0735-7036.122.2.176
Kleider, H.M., Goldinger, S.D. & Knuycky, L. (2008). “Stereotypes Influence False Memory for Imagined Events”. Memory, 16, 91-114. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18286415
Kleider, H.M., Pezdek, K., Goldinger, S. D. & Kirk, A. (2008). Schema-Driven source misattributions errors: Remembering the expected from a witnessed event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1361
Kleider, H.M., & Goldinger, S.D. (2006). “The Generation and Resemblance Heuristics in Face Recognition: Cooperation and Competition”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 32, 259-276. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569145
Kleider, H.M., & Goldinger, S.D. (2004). Illusions of face memory: Clarity breeds familiarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 196-211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2003.09.001
Goldinger, S.D., Kleider, H.M., Azuma, T., & Beike, D. (2003). "Blaming the victim" under memory load. Psychological Science, 14, 1, 81-85. https://doi.org/10.1111%2F1467-9280.01423
Goldinger, S.D., Azuma, T., Kleider, H.M., & Holmes, V. (2002). Font-specific memory: More than meets the eye? In J. Bowers & C. Marsolek (Eds.), Rethinking Implicit Memory. Oxford University Press. pp. 157-196. ISBN: 0-19-263232-9 (Paperback)
Kleider, H.M., & Goldinger, S.D. (2001). Stereotyping ricochet: Complex effects of racial distinctiveness on identification accuracy. Law and Human Behavior, 25, 6, 605-627. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1012706323913
Goldinger, S.D., Kleider, H.M., & Shelley, E. (1999). The marriage of perception and memory: Creating two-way illusions with words and voices. Memory & Cognition, 27, 328-338. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03211416