Gustavus psychology students who participated in Gustavus Sigma Xi 2004 event are:
- Aaltje Baumgart: "Phonetic Interpretation and Influence of Sentence Semantics"
- Alyssa DeHaan: "Coping with Shyness: Physiological, Genetic, and Social Contributions to Personality Traits"
- Jake Hansen: "Coping with Shyness: Physiological, Genetic, and Social Contributions to Personality Traits"
- Ann Marie Miller: "Stress and Performance: A Longitudinal Study of the Swim Season"
- Lisa Swenson "Coping with Shyness: Physiological, Genetic, and Social Contributions to Personality Traits"
|
|
Department News and Views
|
Psi Chi Induction, Spring 2004
Fourteen new members were inducted in Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology on Tuesday, March 16, 2004. New members are Erinn Danielson, Denise Volk, Elizabeth Anderson, Ravinda Samaraweera, Kristin Koperski, Nicole Fuerstenberg, Kelly Semenkewitz, Kimberly Assad, Maisie Stish, Elanna Tryon, Michelle Steadman, Heather Kay, Emily Eddy, and Julie Severson.
|
|
|
The Kendall Lecture Series sponsored "A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective on Memory Development," a formal address presented by Dr. Charles Nelson, Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, May 11.
Dr. Nelson's laboratory has specialized in relating changes in an infant's ability to recognize faces and remember objects and people to changes in their brains. In this talk Dr. Nelson described the use of brain imaging techniques to study the mental processes of healthy and impaired infants.
This presentation is sponsored by the John S. Kendall Lecture Series. Lecturers are selected on the basis of contributions to the field of psychology. Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Kansas:
- "One line of work being conducted in my laboratory concerns the ontogeny of memory in healthy infants and infants at risk for neurocognitive impairments. Results collected over the past few years in healthy infants suggest that some forms of explicit memory (subserved by the medial temporal lobe) come "on-line" sometime after six months of life and undergo a reorganization as children approach one year of age. Infants who have suffered a number of pre- or perinatal insults appear to show delayed and/or atypical development."
- "I also continue to pursue my long-standing interest in the recognition of faces. One aim of our work is to determine if infants perceive faces as a special class of objects. A second is to ascertain where in the brain face processing occurs, and the role experience plays in developing the face recognition system."
- "My long-range goal is to determine the neural loci of both memory and emotion recognition. To complement my electrophysiological studies, I also utilize in my work functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). This work involves testing subjects (children and adults) as they perform a cognitive task (e.g., a task of working memory) while simultaneously having a Magnetic Resonance Image scan performed." Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota website: http://education.umn.edu/icd/faculty/Nelson.htm
John Kendall Lecture Series - what's it all about?
|
|
Professional Publications
|
[Marie Woog, psychology major, '05 and staff writer, interviewed Dr. Marie Walker regarding a recently published study in which Dr. Walker and Dr. Walker's 2002 Methods class participated -- Measuring School Spirit: A National Teaching Exercise was published in Teaching Of Psychology vol..31, no.2, 2004.]
A very unique opportunity arose for Dr. Marie Walker and her research methods class two years ago. In collaboration with 19 other colleges, they researched school spirit. According to Dr. Walker this was an opportunity to not only learn about operational definitions and construct validity, but also to get outside the classroom and learn about their own school.
School Spirit was the construct the students were working with, and the operational definition included measuring such things as how many people wear school apparel in the classroom, how many people attended sporting events, as well as alumni giving and crime rates. The students had to figure out how to obtain attendance records as well as giving records. They also each had to count the Gustavus apparel items worn in one of their classes. Students enjoyed the large-scale study and were driven by the soc ial comparison between colleges.
The study ended up using schools as the unit of analysis, so cross-school comparisons were not measured. The correlations between major indicators of school spirit were calculated. The results of this study showed that this kind of research is very useful tool for the classroom. They also showed that there were positive correlations between the types of school spirit, most notably visual closeness measure with both the collective self-esteem and with alumni giving.
This experiment was a good way to learn important concepts about research in psychology. All of the schools that participated enjoyed this hands-on, out of the classroom opportunity. Hopefully this kind of research can be continued in the future.
|
Psych Department Annual Spring Picnic...
Nearly sixty pysch majors and department faculty enjoyed a beautiful (if windy) afternoon picnic in the Arboreteum on Tuesday, May 4. If you missed it - you missed a good time!
|
The Psych Department Newsletter continues to undergo a new look this year with the assistance of suggestions from recently surveyed student readers... Click here for additional biographical information on Carl Emil Seashore..
|
