Julia Spaniol

Julia Spaniol is a Professor and former NSERC Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (2014-2024) in the Department of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she directs the Memory and Decision Processes Lab. Julia is an experimental psychologist who uses behavioural and neuroscience methods to shed light on motivational factors that influence how we process information, what we remember, and how we make decisions. She is particularly interested in intrinsic motivation (e.g., curiosity and altruism) and its impact on cognition across the adult lifespan and across social and cultural contexts. An emerging line of research in Julia's lab explores cognitive and motivational factors in people's use of advanced digital technologies. Julia's work has been funded by NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR, and CFI.