The View From Carnegie 210

For pictures from the WPUPC, please follow the link at the end of the entry.

At 7:00 in the morning, on Saturday, April 26, a sleepy, but excited group of Allegheny students pulled out of the Carnegie Hall parking lot with the goal of presenting their senior comprehenisvie projects at the Western Pennslyvania Undergraduate Psychology Conference. For the last three decades, the WPUPC has hosted students from around the area and has fostered the scientific process of peer review and collaboration. Attendance at the event has continued to grow and this year was no exception. At least 84 students presented posters at the conference and another 36 students gave paper presentations to standing-room-only audiences.

Among the group were 11 students who ran their projects in the Cognitive Lab with Professor Knupsky (2 of our lab mates could not join us due to prior commitments). The consensus among the group was that the conference was a worthwhile experience and that attending the event seemed to bring home the sense of being connected to the scientific community. For example, senior Katie Cross shared that, " Presenting at the conference really brought the comp process to life. I now see my research as a piece of work that fits in with previous research, not just a project I did to graduate. It is rewarding to see others genuinely interested in my research questions and results."

Other students were proud of the quality and independence of the projects presented by the Allegheny contingent. For example, senior Rachel Learned observed that, "[other] projects did not always seem to have the same passion and knowledge behind them as we do with our senior projects. Allegheny gives us the opportunity of an independent project. And, psychology professors allow us to do OUR research. They help us along and give us support, but it is truly our research question, method...being able to design and run your own research is very valuable, and such a unique opportunity. Learning and conducting research is a much more positive and memorable experience when it is enjoyable and interesting to you."

To learn more about the posters and papers presented by our lab, please continue reading for links to their projects as well as pictures from the event...

Posters

Kristen Lane
The Verbal Overshadowing Effect: Factors that Affect Accurate Identifications

Benjamin Torsney
The Use of a Brief Positive and Negative Imagery Intervention

Katie Cross
The Effects of Gender Identity and Authority on Verbal Interruptions

Lisa Coleman
Fear of the Dentist: Examining the Effect of Dental Anxiety on the Dental Stroop Test

Nicole Tindall
The Effects of Motivation and Arousal of Those in a Negative Mood on False Recall and
Recognition

Benjamin Wojtasik
Story Recall as a Function of Listener Attitude and Speaker Selfâ??efficacy

Angela Ricciardi
The Effect of Seasonal Cues on Mood

Sarah M. Winter
Virtual Anonymity: Examining Differences in Language and Perception of Others in IM

Papers

Daniel Goldstein
The Effect of Context on First Impressions

Rachel Learned
The Interview Experience: Effects of Small Talk and Note Taking

Natalie Nagy
Language in Email

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On this Day of Silence, I'm thinking about how the words of a few can have a lasting and dangerous impact on the lives of many. I'm thinking about how some people think it's okay to say "that's so gay" as long as there aren't any gay people around. I'm thinking about how people can justify using the term "Lezzy Hipster" in a school newspaper by calling it satire, without thinking of its broader implications. I'm thinking about how language can be used to silence, to stereotype, to isolate, to alienate, and to dismiss entire groups of people. I'm thinking about how, after our language dismisses a group of people, it becomes easier to treat that group as less than human...about how theoretical separation can turn into physical violence.

In his book The Language of Oppression, Haig Bosmajian states that, "The importance, significance, and ramifications of naming and defining people cannot be over-emphasized." That, "while names, words, and language can be and are used to inspire us, to motivate us to humane acts, to liberate us, they can also be used to dehumanize human beings and to 'justify' their suppression and even their extermination." That, "just as our thoughts affect our language, so does our language affect our thoughts and eventually our actions and behavior."

Can words hurt me? You bet! Freedom of speech is such an easy shield to throw up as a way to protect hate speech...and hate speech creates irreparable harm. On this Day of Silence, I'm thinking about how we all have an ethical obligation to protect free speech, but to also consider the ethics of that speech, and to question whether the satirical value of our words can outweigh the very real, heart-breaking violence that speech can incite.

Finally, I'm thinking about Bosmajian's call to action. He states, "One way for us to curtail the use of the language of oppression is for those who find themselves being defined into subjugation to rebel against such linguistic suppression." That we should, "identify the decadence in our language, the inhumane uses of language, the 'silly words and expressions' which have been used to justify the unjustifiable, to make palatable the unpalatable, to make reasonable the unreasonable, to make decent the indecent."

I am hopeful that the silence of those who participated today can help end the silence of our LGBT community in the future.

To find out more about the Day of Silence, please visit the Day of Silence website.

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For more pictures of the NSSA trip to Vegas, please follow the link at the end of the entry.

Well, obviously, the NSSA (National Social Science Association) conference goers made it back! After quite a hectic four days, we all jumped back on a plane to Pittsburgh and have rejoined the Allegheny community for that last push before the end of the academic year. However, for those of you who were not able to join us, please utilize the following resources to learn about the projects presented by your fellow Allegheny classmates. Please note that the podcast sound is very soft, turn up your volume to hear the talks.

Professor Carla Bluhm and Seniors Dan Goldstein and Sarah Winter
Second Life, Second Chance: Virtual Reality in the College Psychology Classroom.
A qualitative study of college student's reactions to being asked to engage in a virtual world such as Second Life, in their psychology class. For the podcast of their talk, please listen to Second Life.

Professor Aimee Knupsky
Extending the Conversation: The Use of Blogs in a First-Year Experience Course at Allegheny College.
Strategies for utilizing blogging as a way to extend educational discourse beyond the classroom and to foster the creativity of student voices. For the PowerPoint slides for this talk, please see Blogging.

Senior Adrianne Grand (advisor Professor Knupsky)
Run like a Cheetah, Swim like a Dolphin! The Effects of Facilitative and Inhibitive Imagery in Athletic Form in Collegiate Runners and Swimmers.
This series of experiments investigates the effects of facilitative and inhibitive imagery on ease of motion and athletic form in athletes. For the podcast of the talk, please listen to Sports Imagery.

Juniors Chris Hansen and Jennifer Warren (with alum Todd Derby and advisor Professor Knupsky)
Expressions of Deception under Cognitive Load: Examining the Influence of Working Memory on the Presentation of Deceptive Cues.
Study explores how working memory load influences the expression of verbal and nonverbal cues to deception across truthful, deceptive, and multiple-audience contexts. For the podcast of their talk, please listen to Deception.

Seniors Katie Cross and Natalie Nagy (advisor Professor Knupsky)
An Examination of Female Language Use in Problem Solving Scenarios: Interruptions and Personalization.
Series of experiments explores the language styles of females presented with problem solving scenarios. Specifically, interruptions, personal language, and authority are examined. For the podcast of their talk, please listen to Authority & Language.

Congratulations to all the conference presenters...great job! And, keep your eyes open...several of the students will be submitting their work for publication with Professor Knupsky.

The crew began its stay in Vegas with a limo ride to the MGM Grand.

Site of the 3 day National Technology and Social Science Conference, sponsored by the NSSA.

After a long two days of conference presentations...Chris, Natalie, Adrianne, Prof Knupsky, Sarah, Katie, Jenn, and Dan.

Second Life panel Sarah, Prof Bluhm, and Dan.

Dinner in Paris!

Favorite stop...the fountains at the Bellagio.

Waiting for the fountain show.

Who paid for these hats??

Last night...dinner in Vegas.

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Panelists included (left to right) Jamie Skender, Liz Marsh, Angie Ricciardi, Katie Cross, and Kristen Lane.

Not that you all don't love being at Allegheny, but, eventually, you will have to venture into the outside world. Cognitive Group was very excited to invite four seniors and an '08 alum who have recently gone through this transition process to talk to us about their experiences. The students included Katie Cross, who has been accepted to a Masters program in Speech Pathology, Angie Ricciardi, who was accepted to a Masters of Education program, Kristen Lane, who has just accepted a position with the FBI, Liz March, who was accepted to a Cognitive psych PhD program at Arizona State University, and Jamie Skender who was accepted into a Masters of Education early intervention program for children with disabilities with an autism specialization.

After a brief introduction of each program, the meeting was opened up for questions and answers. Discussion centered on thinking about what programs to pursue, how to find them, the application process, the GREs, and what it was like to interview. The panelists also shared what they were most excited about in terms of their new programs and pursuits.

If you were not able to join us, you can still benefit from this great conversation. Just follow this link Life After Allegheny to listen to our discussion.

Thanks so much to all the panelists for sharing their experiences. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Site of the 2008 National Technology & Social Science Conference

Hello from Las Vegas! By the first day of our conference, our not so little group from Allegheny has had quite an experience. We've enjoyed a limo ride from the airport, slept at two different hotels on the Vegas strip, and have enjoyed the food and sights of the city.

Today, however, marks the beginning of the conference, and so we shift into different gears. This morning (Monday, April 7th), Professor Carla Bluhm, and students Dan Goldstein and Sarah (Farah) Winter are presenting about the use of Second Life as a classroom tool. This afternoon, Professor Knupsky (yours truly) will present her experience utilizing blogging as a classroom tool in FS101 (the first year seminar) and Psych440 (an upper level language course). Tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8th), Allegheny representatives are giving three presentations. Adrianne Grand is presenting her work on the influence of imagery on the ease of motion of athletes. Katie Cross & Natalie Nagy are presenting a combined paper discussing their senior comps which examined the importance of authority in determining the use of interruptions and personalization in the language of female students. And, last but not least, Chris Hansen and Jennifer Warren are presenting their work on the expression of verbal and nonverbal cues to deception in the multiple audience predicament (an extension of the work of alum Todd Derby).

Stay tuned for an update after our return!

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Alchemist, Myles Pinkney

Reading Language Shock by Michael Agar has allowed me to reflect on the transformation I have undergone during my time here at Allegheny. A little over two years ago, I arrived at Allegheny with a fresh PhD in experimental psychology. Consequently, my ideas about how to test language were informed largely from an empirical, quantitative approach. Psycholinguistic research revels in such an approach--we identify the level of language of interest (orthography, phonology, semantics, syntax) and then examine that aspect of language, usually in isolation, in a controlled setting in the lab. Our participants name pictures, read words, and, occasionally, make decisions about those pictures and words. Adventurous psycholinguists present whole sentences to participants and record their reactions to sentences that end as expected versus in an unanticipated way. Obviously, these methods represent the classic "language within the circle" approach that Agar describes in his book.

I had not thought about the limitations of this approach clearly until I began working with students. Why the change? Somewhat to my surprise, students are not quite as interested in classic, "language within the circle" experiments. Instead, students who have worked with me wanted to study language in context. They wanted to know how language operated in deception, how differences in gender could lead to differences in language rituals, how images and words could be used together to teach language. All of these topics were interesting to me, but over time, they were slowly pulling me out of my comfortable circle and into the realm of sociolinguistics. It has been quite a fascinating journey.

In any event, Language Shock has allowed me to compare and contrast the relative merits of each approach--their limitations and advantages. Here are a few questions I still have regarding Agar's work...

1. Why are words and sentences Bad Data? I understood his use of this phrase in regards to the ethnocentric descriptions of culture that Boas was unhappy with...that was data which was gathered using a particular bias. I wonder if it wouldn't be more accurate to say that words and sentences are Incomplete Data.

2. Why do the differences between cultures have to "get personal"? This is a sentiment Agar repeats several times throughout his book. I suppose this has to do with the requirement that, in order for us to understand a culture, we have to experience a difference between our own culture and that particular culture to generate an awareness of these differences.

3. How can we guard against the "slippery boundary between -isms and culture?" (p. 126) I certainly recognize the danger of culture becoming a label...it's the number-one approach. How do we make sure that the differences we identify initiate an understanding of different frames with different default values? In other words, how do we initiate "a trip from rich points to understanding"? (p. 137)

Posted by Aimee Knupsky at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)