Valerie F. Reyna (born 1955) is an American psychologist and Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and an expert on false memory and risky decision making.
In collaboration with her husband Charles Brainerd,[1] Reyna developed fuzzy-trace theory, a dual-process model of mental representations underlying memory, judgement, and decision making.
[8] Reyna's research program adopts a cognitive neuroscience perspective on topics pertaining to judgement, decision making, and memory over the life span.
[12] In applications of fuzzy-trace theory to risky decision making, Reyna and her colleagues distinguish "rational" decision-making, involving deliberate analysis of trade offs between risks and benefits, and nondeliberative reactions, in which the gist of the situation cues action.
Rather, it is their tendency to respond intuitively to contextual cues and their motivation to maximize immediate pleasure that leads adolescents to engage in risky behaviors involving sexual activity, reckless driving, smoking, drug and alcohol use, and the like.