I am a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and College of General Studies. I received a B.A. in Psychology from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. My research explored social cognitive processes and their development. After completing my PhD, I spent 4.5 years teaching a range of Psychology course, including Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology and Psychology of Emotion at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada. I have experience in distance and face-to-face instruction.
As a Psychologist, I am passionate about using the knowledge we have about how our human brain processes and retains information to best support my students’ learning. I have developed a research interest in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and recently conducted my first study SoTL study. My research and teaching goal is to make my classes interactive and engagement while ensuring that the tools that I use are accessible to all students.
Courses Taught at Pitt
PSY 0010 - Introduction to Psychology
PSY 0037 - Research Methods Lab
PSY 0105 - Introduction to Social Psychology
PSY 0310 - Developmental Psychology
PSY 1225 - Psychology of Emotion
Education & Training
PhD, Developmental Psychology - McMaster University, Ontario, CA
BA, Psychology - St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, CA
Representative Publications
Hofrichter, R., Siddiqui, H., Morrisey, M. N., & Rutherford, M. D. (2021). Early Attention to Animacy: Change-Detection in 11-Month-Olds. Evolutionary Psychology, 19(2), https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211028220.
Hofrichter, R., Mueller, M. & Rutherford, M.D. (2021) Children's Perception of Animacy: Social Attributions to Moving Figures. Perception, 50(5), 387-398. https://doi.org/10.1177/03010066211010142.
Hofrichter, R., & Rutherford, M. D. (2019). Early Attentional Capture of Animate Motion: 4- Year-Olds Show a Pop-Out Effect for Chasing Stimuli. Perception, 48(3), 228-236. https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006619828256.
Morrisey, M., Hofricher, R. & M.D. Rutherford (2019). Human faces capture attention and attract first saccades without longer fixation. Visual Cognition, 27(2), 158- 170. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2019.1631925.
