Timothy P. McNamara

Timothy P. McNamara is a psychologist currently holding the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Social and Natural Sciences at Vanderbilt University. He heads the Spatial Memory & Navigation Lab (MemNav Lab)

Awards and recognition

• 1977 Undergraduate Research Participation Awards (Spring & Summer), University of Kansas
• 1978 Beulah Morrison Award for Excellence in Psychology, University of Kansas
• 1978 Department of Psychology Chairman's Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, University of Kansas
• 1979 Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society in Computer Science
• 1979 Pi Mu Epsilon Honor Society in Mathematics
• 1979 Bachelor of General Studies awarded summa cum laude, University of Kanasas
• 1986-1988 National Academy of Education Spencer Fellow
• 1994 Elected Fellow of American Psychological Association, Division 3
• 1999 Elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2003 Elected Fellow of Association for Psychological Science
• 2019 Thomas Jefferson Award, Vanderbilt University
• 2022 Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Social and Natural Sciences, Vanderbilt University

Biography

McNamara received his B.G.S. in 1979 from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University in 1984. He started his career as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University in 1983. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1989 and to Professor in 1995. At Vanderbilt University, McNamara has served as Chair of the Department of Psychology (1996-2004, 2022-2023); Associate and Vice Provost (2004-2015); and Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Science (2023-2024). He has been involved in higher education accreditation, and served on the Board of Trustees of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges from 2014 to 2019.

Research

McNamara's research investigates human memory, cognition, and decision making, with a particular focus on spatial processing. His research has investigated the metric structure of spatial memory, the spatial reference systems used in memory to represent the locations of objects in the environment, and how people update representations of their own location and orientation during locomotion. Recent studies have examined how people use spatial cues to location and orientation (e.g., landmarks in the environment and body-based cues, such as vestibular, proprioceptive, and efference-copy information) during navigation to estimate their positions and the locations of goals. These studies have used statistical decision theory as a theoretical framework for examining the complex sensory-perceptual and decision processes involved in navigation.

Representative Papers

• McNamara, T. P. (1986). Mental representations of spatial relations. Cognitive Psychology, 18(1), 87-121.
• Shelton, A. L., & McNamara, T. P. (2001). Systems of spatial reference in human memory. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 274-310.
• Mou, W., & McNamara, T. P. (2002). Intrinsic frames of reference in spatial memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 162-17.
• Mou, W., McNamara, T. P., Valiquette, C. M., & Rump, B. (2004). Allocentric and egocentric updating of spatial memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 142-157.
• Kelly, J. W., McNamara, T. P., Bodenheimer, B., Carr, T. H., & Rieser, J. J. (2008). The shape of human navigation: How environmental geometry is used in the maintenance of spatial orientation. Cognition, 109, 281-286.
• Chen, X., He, Q., Kelly, J. W., Fiete, I. R., & McNamara, T. P. (2015). Bias in human path integration is predicted by properties of grid cells. Current Biology, 25 (13), 1771-6.
• Chen, X., McNamara, T. P., Kelly, J. W., & Wolbers, T. (2017). Cue combination in human spatial navigation. Cognitive Psychology, 95, 105-144.
• He, Q., McNamara, T. P., Bodenheimer, B., & Klippel, A. (2019). Acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge during wayfinding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(8), 1364-1386.
• McNamara, T. P., & Chen, X. (2022). Bayesian decision theory and navigation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29, 721-752.