Lauren Rubenstein“We’ve moved the meeting/truck forward.” “That was a long wait/ hotdog.” "We’re rapidly approaching the deadline/guardrail.” English speakers use a shared vocabulary to talk about space and time. And though it’s not something we’re necessarily conscious of, psychologists have found that the identical words we use to describe our wait in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles and the length of an especially impressive hotdog are not a fluke, but rather are telling of the cognitive processes involved in thinking about time. Past studies have shown that priming people with spatial information actually influences their perceptions of time. For example, people primed to imagine…
Inspired by her students' passion for education reform, Assistant Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman and several of her students launched an innovative five-week pilot program this summer to prepare children entering kindergarten at Macdonough School in Middletown. Fifteen children participated in this research-based program, with a curriculum designed by Shusterman, her students and a Macdonough teacher. According to Shusterman, children in low-income neighborhoods start kindergarten with academic skills up to two years behind their peers. Research shows that quality early childhood education makes a huge difference in helping to shrink this achievement gap. In fact, economists estimate a $7 return…
Olivia DrakeQ&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Andrew Ribner from the Class of 2014. Q: Andrew, you're a rising junior, working toward a university major in educational psychology and learning theory and biology. Please explain what a university major is and why you chose this degree path. A: A university major is essentially an interdisciplinary create-your-own major. It's an option that isn't very highly publicized, and is completely unique to each student who does it. It's an intense application process that involves writing a formal proposal and four-year class schedule,…
Wesleyan's Psychology Department hosted the second annual Cognitive Development Undergraduate Research Conference on July 18. Faculty, research assistants and undergraduates from Wesleyan, Smith College, Wellesley College and Barnard College attended the conference to discuss their research. Seven labs from the four schools presented their work at the event. "This conference is a great opportunity for faculty and students to discuss research, for the faculty to catch up on new work, and for students in this field to connect with each other," says Shusterman, who organized the conference. Photos of the event are below: (more…)
Hilary Barth, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, is the co-author of "Active (not passive) spatial imagery primes temporal judgements." Written along with Jessica Sullivan of the University of California-San Diego, the article was published in the June 2012 issue of The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. For this article, Barth and Sullivan looked deeper into the previously demonstrated cognitive connections between how we think about space and time. They found that only when people are asked to imagine actively moving themselves through space are their perceptions of time influenced. When participants in the experiment were primed with a similar…
Matthew Kurtz, associate professor of psychology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, is the co-editor of a new book, Clinical Neuropsychological Foundations of Schizophrenia. The book, co-edited by Bernice Marcopulos, was published on July 11 by Psychology Press. A resource for practicing neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychiatrists, as well as students of these disciplines, the volume provides knowledge and tools for providing professional neuropsychological services to patients with schizophrenia. It offers an overview of developmental models of schizophrenia and associated neuropathologies, and covers contemporary evidence-based assessments and interventions, including cognitive remediation and other cognitive-oriented interventions.
Matthew Kurtz, associate professor of psychology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, presented the “Senior Voices” baccalaureate address on May 26. I want to start by thanking the class of 2012 for inviting me to speak at this baccalaureate celebration and permitting me to be part of these festivities. I am so happy for all of you! It’s been an honor for me to see you all mature over the past 4 years, see you become more confident in your ideas and thinking, more poised and subtle in the expression of your ideas, and more skilled in interacting with those…
Charles Sanislow, assistant professor of psychology; Ellen Bartolini '11; and Emma Zoloth '10 are the co-authors of an article on avoidant personality disorder, published in the Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 2nd Edition by the Elsevier imprint Academic Press, pages 257-266, 2012. According to an abstract of the article, "Avoidant personality disorder (APD) is characterized by severe and chronic social anxiety. Prospective studies demonstrate modest symptomatic stability and chronic functional impairment. Current diagnostic conceptualizations distinguish APD from other distress disorders, such as anxiety and depression, by a long-standing pattern of social avoidance accompanied by fears of criticism and low self-worth so pervasive that it defines who a…
Steven Stemler, assistant professor of psychology, is the co-author of a new book, The School Mission Statement: Values, Goals & Identities in American Education," published by Eye on Education in March. Co-authored with Damian J. Bebell of Boston College, the book contains an extensive review of mission statements from a diverse range of schools, including public schools, charter schools, magnet schools, vocational schools, parochial schools and Native American schools. Stemler and Bebell developed a coding rubric to classify the mission statements according to eleven broad themes (eg. Foster cognitive development; foster social development; foster emotional development; integrate into global community).…
Lisa Dierker, chair and professor of psychology, and Ruth Striegel, the Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, professor of psychology, are co-authors of a paper titled, "Behavioral Symptoms of Eating Disorders in Native Americans: Results from the Add Health Survey Wave III," published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2011. In addition, Dierker is the author of "Alcohol Use as a Signal for Sensitivity to Nicotine Dependence: Cross-sectional findings from a Nationally Representative Sample of Recent Onset Smokers," published in Addictive Behaviors, Issue 36(4), pages 421-426, 2011. And "How Spacing of Data Collection May Impact Estimates of Substance Use…
Lisa Dierker, chair and professor of psychology, Jennifer Rose, research associate professor of psychology and two postdoctoral fellows, together with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, are the co-authors of two new papers examining nicotine dependence in teen smokers. “The Natural Course of Nicotine Dependence Symptoms Among Adolescent Smokers,” was published March 15 in the peer-reviewed journal, Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Wesleyan Postdoctoral Fellows Weihai Zhan and Arielle Selya contributed to the paper. The researchers followed novice adolescent smokers, as well as those who had never smoked before, for four years. They found that, before smoking 100 cigarettes, 20 percent reported…