Psychology Department

Anna Shusterman, associate professor of psychology and co-coordinator of education studies, studies learning and conceptual development in children. In this Q&A, we asked her for advice for families on transitioning children to distance learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. Q: How should parents talk to kids about what’s happening in the world and why their daily lives look so different? A: Full disclosure: I am not a clinician. However, as a parent and a research psychologist, I think it’s important for parents to validate their children’s emotions rather than dismissing them or telling them they are being silly. It’s also important…

Wesleyan in the News 1. Hartford Courant: "Jeanine Basinger, the 'Professor of Hollywood,' Is Wesleyan University's Homegrown Screen Legend" Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Emerita Jeanine Basinger, whom this article notes has been dubbed “the professor of Hollywood” and “an iconic figure in American cinema, one of the most beloved and respected film history professors in the history of film studies” by The Hollywood Reporter, is interviewed on the occasion of her 60th year at Wesleyan, and the 50th since she created its film program. She talks about her next book on American film comedy, shares some of her favorite things,…

Barbara Juhasz, Jeffrey L. Shames Professor of Civic Engagement and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and behavior, is the co-author of an article titled "The time course of age-of-acquisition effects on eye movements during reading: Evidence from survival analyses," published in Memory and Cognition, January 2020. According to the paper's abstract: Adults process words that are rated as being learned earlier in life faster than words that are rated as being acquired later in life. This age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect has been observed in a variety of word-recognition tasks when word frequency is controlled. AoA has also previously been found to…

Wesleyan in the News Connecticut Public Radio: "The Struggle for Sleep: Why More School Districts Are Considering Later Starts" Speaking as both a scholar and a mother, Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman comments in this story on the movement to push schools in the state to start later. “People ask me, as a developmental psychologist, ‘Oh, we have this mental health crisis in the state, what are we going to do, what should we be funding, what kind of resources do we need to build in?’ And I just think it’s so silly when we have such a straightforward…

Two Wesleyan faculty received a $492,410 Academic Research Enhancement Award (R15) from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) to support their study titled “Comparing Cognitive Remediation Approaches for Schizophrenia.” R15 awards provide funding for small-scale, new, or ongoing health-related meritorious research projects, enhancing the research environment at eligible institutions and exposing students to research opportunities. The R15 principal investigator Matthew Kurtz, professor of psychology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, and R15 co-investigator Jennifer Rose, professor of the practice and director of the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, will work with a group of Wesleyan undergraduates for the duration of the…

Hilary Barth, professor of psychology; Andrea Patalano, professor of psychology; Joanna Paul '18; and former postdoctoral fellow Chenmu (Julia) Xing are co-authors of a paper titled "Probability range and probability distortion in a gambling task," published in Acta Psychologica in June 2019. Barth and Emily Slusser, a former postdoctoral fellow, are the co-authors of a paper titled "Spontaneous partitioning and proportion estimation in children’s numerical judgments," published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology in September 2019. Barth; Patalano; Slusser; Alexandra Zax, visiting scholar in psychology; and Katherine Williams, lab coordinator; are the co-authors of a paper titled "What Do…

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Wesleyan in the News 1. Marketplace Tech: "Twitter Bans Political Ads, But Is That All Good?" Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, is interviewed about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's announcement that the platform would no longer run political ads. Fowler says implementing this ban is likely to be more complicated than it sounds, and she is skeptical that it will help to reduce the impact of disinformation and improve political discourse. Fowler was…

Numerous students, alumni, and faculty from Wesleyan's Cognitive Development Labs recently presented their research at the 2019 Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, held Oct. 17–19 in Louisville, Ky. The labs are led by Professor of Psychology Hilary Barth and Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman. Barth and Kerry Brew '18, MA '19 presented their poster, "Do Demand Characteristics Contribute to Minimal Ingroup Bias?" The work was done in collaboration with lab alumni Taylar Clark '19 and Jordan Feingold-Link '18. Sophie Charles '20, lab coordinator Katherine Williams, and former lab coordinator Alexandra Zax presented their poster, "The Role of Digit Identity…

The Summe Program for Research in the Sciences culminated with a research poster session in the lobby of Exley Science Center, with more than 100 students participating. The program, held May 29 to July 26, was open to frosh, sophomores and juniors currently enrolled at Wesleyan. Wesleyan science faculty members served as mentors for student research in their laboratories. In addition to the closing poster session, the students participated in weekly seminars and workshops, a symposium, and various social events. After the poster session, students displayed their posters in the hallways outside the introductory biology laboratories. (more…)

Hilary Barth and Andrea Patalano, both professors of psychology, have received a major grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support collaborative research on numerical cognition. The three-year $1,091,303 grant, which is funded by NSF’s EHR Core Research program focused on STEM learning, includes support for Wesleyan student participation in the proposed research project, which will involve experimental studies of children’s and adults’ understanding of, and judgments about, number and quantity. The two labs collaborate frequently, and have been working jointly on another project for the past three years supported by an earlier NSF grant. The new project is distinct,…

On May 25, members of the Class of 2019 were inducted into Wesleyan’s Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest national scholastic honor society. The Wesleyan Gamma Chapter was organized in 1845 and is the ninth-oldest chapter in the country. To be elected, a student must first have been nominated by the department of his or her major. The student also must have demonstrated curricular breadth by having met the General Education Expectations and must have achieved a GPA of 93 and above. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest surviving Greek letter society in America, founded in December…

A paper coauthored by several members of the Robinson Lab is published in the Oct. 3 issue of Behavioural Brain Research, Volume 371. The coauthors include Mike Robinson, assistant professor of psychology; graduate student Charlotte Freeland, Callie Clibanoff '19, Anna Knes '19, John Cote '19, and Trinity Russell '17. The flashing lights and celebratory sounds that dominate slot-machine gambling are believed to promote engagement and motivation to keep playing. However, these cues are often presented in the absence of reward, and previous research suggests that this reward uncertainty, which degrades their predictive value, also increases their incentive value. In their…

Shusterman Offers Advice for Families on Transitioning to Homeschooling

Wesleyan in the News

Juhasz Studies Word Age-of-Acquisition Effects through Eye Movements

Recent Media Hits

Kurtz, Rose Receive NIMH Award for Schizophrenia Study

Papers by Barth, Patalano, Others Published in Psychology Journals

Wesleyan in the News

Psychology Faculty, Students, Alumni Present Research at CDS Meeting

Undergraduates Share Summer Research

Barth, Patalano Receive $1.09M NSF Grant to Support Numerical Cognition Research

Members of the Class of 2019 Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa

Paper by Robinson, Alumni Published in Behavioural Brain Research