Psychology

Kathleen Galotti, Professor of Cognitive Science, recently served on a panel reviewing the Psychology Department at Oberlin College. Galotti also served as a panelist for the 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship program.

Ken Abrams, Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Kelley Stevens '11 published a paper titled "The relation between premenstrual dysphoric disorder, panic attacks, and panic disorder" in Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 81. The paper represents an extension of the comps work completed by Kelley, who is first author

Ken Abrams, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Kate Leger '10, Laura Schlosser '10, Anne Merrill '10, Molly Bresslour '10, and Avantika Jalan '10 published an article in Nicotine and Tobacco Research titled "Nicotine Withdrawal Exacerbates Fear Reactivity to CO₂-Induced Bodily Sensations Among Smokers."

Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, gave a talk at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, on "Spreading Activation for Quantitative Reasoning." Lutsky is serving as a consultant to a Teagle Grant on quantitative reasoning shared by Lewis & Clark and Willamette University.

Seth Greenberg, Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology and Julian Tokarev '10, along with Zach Estes, Warwick University, England, have an article coming out shortly in The American Journal of Psychology entitled "Affective Orientation Influences Memory for Emotional and Neutral Words." The article derives from Tokarev's thesis. The investigation found that searching for a certain emotion quality of a word in a list can enhance opportunity for recall and recognition.

Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, gave the 2011 Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Address at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in August. The title of his talk was "Nothing Abides: What Then Remains in the Teaching of Psychology?" The talk accompanied Lutsky's receipt of the American Psychological Foundation's 2011 Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award.

Ken Abrams, Assistant Professor of Psychology, recently co-hosted a two-day conference with Dana Gross (St. Olaf College) titled "Strategies for Internationalizing Undergraduate Psychology." The conference, funded by an Associated Colleges of the Midwest/Faculty Career Enhancement (ACM FaCE) grant, featured international and domestic keynote speakers and psychology faculty from across the ACM. Abrams also presented on a panel titled "Developing and Leading International Off-Campus Courses in Psychology" with Lawrence White (Beloit) and Donna McMillan (St. Olaf).

Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, recently presented three talks at Berea College in Kentucky. Two were given to the faculty on quantitative reasoning across the curriculum and the third, on Lutsky's recent research on superstition, entitled "What's Luck Got to Do with It?," was given to the Department of Psychology.

Seth Greenberg, Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology, published with colleagues from Binghamton University, Albrecht Inhoff and Bradley Seymour, and from Universitaet Potsdam, Daniel Schad, an article "The size and direction of saccadic curvatures during reading." The empirical article which appeared in Vision Research, 50, 1117-1130, demonstrates that both the linguistic processing demands and physical layout of text guide such movements.

Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology was named as the 2011 recipient of the American Psychological Foundation's Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award. This award recognizes "a significant career of contributions as an exceptional teacher of psychology." Lutsky was nominated for this recognition by a group of his former students at Carleton and by colleagues in the teaching of psychology community. The awardee receives a plaque, $2000, and an all-expense paid trip to the American Psychological Association annual convention, where the award is presented and where the winner is invited to give a special address.

Ken Abrams, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Laura Schlosser '10, Kate Leger '10, Katelyn Donisch '09, Andrew Widmer '09, and Anna Minkina '10, published an article in the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy titled "Panic-Relevant Cognitive Processes Among Smokers."

Seth Greenberg, Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology, along with Vincent Chuan '09, published an article "Chinese Radical Detection Also Depends on Linguistic Role" in Scientific Studies in Reading. November 2010, 544-553. The article examines how Chinese readers process various types of function morphemes in Chinese as a test of Koriat and Greenberg's structural model of reading. The study indicates that reading ideographic text, in respect to processing function units, is like that of reading alphabetic text. Mark Hansell, Professor of Chinese, provided valuable assistance in this project.