The following are the topics that faculty in the Psychology Department are willing to supervise as senior projects. Some faculty have also indicated their preference for how the project might be organized, i.e., one or two semesters, etc.

Professor Rodney Clark

Neurochemical correlates of motivation as well as interactions between drug effects and ongoing behavior including animal models of drug abuse.  Project topic areas are as follows:

  • Behavioral Pharmacology
  • Behavioral Neuroscience 
  • Basic Experimental Analysis of Behavior
  • Behavioral Teratology
  • Biomedical Ethics (Archival, survey, etc.) 
  • Applied Behavior analysis

Organizational Preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

 

Professor Sarah Conklin

Health and Human Psychophysiology (available laboratory measures include: electroencephalography (EEG), blood pressure, pulse, electromyography (EMG), blood oxygenation, electrooculography (EOG), and skin conductance response (SCR).

Stress: psychophysiological reactivity to stress and methods to reduce perceived stress (potential methods listed below).

Meditation: influence on positive and negative moods, behavior, cognitive performance and autonomic function.

Diet: influence on positive and negative moods, behavior, cognitive performance and autonomic function (particular interest in dietary lipids). Veganism, vegetarianism, supplement use and other dietary patterns on mood and psychophysiology.

Sleep: napping patterns in college students.

Organizational preference: two semesters.

 

Professor Jeffrey Cross

Application of a physiological/neuroscience perspective, with a focus on topics linked to animal models of neurodegenerative disease and prenatal insult effects on brain development. Recent comp topics have included:

  • animal models of stroke
  • animal models of autism
  • animal models of Parkinson's disease
  • tissue transplantation to repair CNS injury/disease

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

Professor William DeLamarter

Interested in supervising both experimental and library senior senior projects in most areas of social psychology. Recent interests have included

  • gender and the use of social power
  • attribution of responsibility
  • presumption of guilt in exercising Miranda rights
  • psychology and law
  • justice
  • persuasion
  • social issues (policy concerns)

Organizational preference: As a general principle, most experimental projects in social psychology require two semesters while library projects can be completed in a single semester. Students are encouraged to discuss their ideas early to decide on the best strategy for their interests.

 

Professor Deborah Dickey

Developmental topics including:

  •         Child-parent interactions
  •         Education during childhood
  •         Gender
  •         Sexual identity

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

 

Professor JW P. Heuchert

 Clinical psychology and psychopathology (abnormal behavior) topics including research on:

 

  • Mood (assessing mood; mood disorders; research with the POMS - Profile of Mood States; etc.)
  • Personality (particularly research on the Five Factor Model; using the NEO-PI-R to assess personality; etc.)
  • Peace (any aspect of peace – peace and personality; developmental aspects; peace promotion; etc.)
  • Touch (any research on touch – therapeutic touch; experiences of touch; effects of touch, touch disorders, etc.)
  • Any aspects of abnormal behavior in general, especially among adolescents/young adults.

 

Organizational preference: One-semester comps (Psychology 620).

 

Professor Jeffrey Hollerman

Behavioral, anatomical and electrophysiological investigations in the rat central nervous system, particularly in relation to animal models of autism and dopaminergic function and dysfunction (e.g., natural and drug reward, schizophrenia, Parkinson's).

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

Professor Gwen Kenney-Benson

Developmental psychology with particular interest/expertise in topics related to:

  • parenting and family
  • gender/sex differences
  • self-concept and self-evaluative processes
  • academic achievement and motivation
  • Socialization processes (involving e.g., parents, peers, schools, media)

Organizational Preference: Psych 630 seminar in Fall '08 semester.

 

Professor Aimee Knupsky

Cognitive psychology with an emphasis on interests in language comprehension and production (from psycholinguistic or sociolinguistic perspectives), bilingualism, memory processing, imagery, and problem solving. Topics may include research on:

·        examination of language organization via picture naming or word reading

·        conversational principles of language use

·        characteristics of language use in narratives, e-mails, Instant-messaging

·        characteristics of commitment language (in couples, children/parents, students/professors)

·        factors influencing the acquisition, fluency, or use of a second language

·        prospective memory (memory for when to do something)

·        application of memory research to the classroom (testing effects, mnemonics, imagery)

·        use of imagery in social situations, problem solving, and the arts

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

 

Professor Calion B. Lockridge, Jr.

 

Human cognitive processes associated with language use -- in particular, interactive spoken dialogue. An additional area of interest is social cognition in relation to the implicit or unconscious cognitive systems that can influence conscious social behavior; such as assessments people have of themselves and others that can reflect often unintended thoughts and feelings about their social group relationship (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, class).

 

Example topics for language use in spoken dialogue could include:

 

  • The impact of individual differences (e.g. working memory span) on people’s language use in different conversational contexts
  • How people adapt their speaking and understanding to their conversational partners and to the extensive variation in speech
  • Referral strategies during collaborative spoken dialogue
  • Human memory processes and their impact on language use in conversation
  • Availability of visual information and its impact on how people produce and comprehend language

 

Example topics in social cognition could include:

 

  • Implicit associations and conscious behavior towards micro and macro social outgroups
  • Possible hierarchies with respect to implicit associations and their implications for conscious social behavior
  • The reliability and validity of implicit associations with respect to predicting conscious social behavior toward people of a different race in different social context
  • Socialization processes and their impact on people’s implicit associations of social outgroups

 

Organization Preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

 

Professor Patricia Rutledge

 I am interested in supervising research-based projects, particularly those that make use of large, extant datasets. I also am interested in supervising library-based projects. My primary area of interest is alcohol and substance use and abuse, particularly among college students. I also am interested in the area of cognitive control (thought suppression and its effects). My organizational preference is for a year-long senior project (600/610).

 

Professor Joshua Searle-White

Clinical psychology and other areas in which psychological understanding is applied to real-world problems. Recent comp topics have included:

  • development of a conflict resolution model for use on campus
  • a cross-cultural analysis of attitudes towards dating
  • using the family systems model to understand families with autistic children
  • an analysis of religious delusions in people with schizophrenia
  • an examination of whether electro-convulsive therapy is useful for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder.
  • a literary and psychological analysis of autobiographies of people with mental disorders

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

 

Professor Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak

  • Community psychology
  • Activism and nonviolence
  • Social and cognitive aspects of religion

Organizational preference: One semester preferred except where students are using outside agencies or schools and therefore need extra time to cut the red tape. Students are encouraged to discuss their ideas early to decide on the best strategy for their interests.

Professor Amy Wiseman

Study of human cognition from a cognitive neuroscience or cognitive psychology perspective. Primary areas of interest are memory and imagery, though projects could be on other areas of cognition as well, such as perception, attention, or metacognition (knowing what you know) . Example topics in memory could include:

· false memories
· the effects of imagery on memory
· application of learning and memory to education
· memory strategies
· visual memory (for example, memory for scenes)
· metamemory (knowledge of your own memory)
· conscious vs. unconscious memories

Organizational preference: Year-long comps (Psychology 600/610).

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