Colloquia Information
Held Fridays in Gries Hall room 167 @ 3:10
We are pleased to extend an invitation to all interested persons --
Faculty, Staff, Students, Members of the Public -- to join us in listening to and
participating in this session of our 2009-2010 Colloquia Series. For further information
please contact the Psychology Department, N.M.U., 227-2935.
Future Colloquia will be added as details are obtained.
Fall 2009 Colloquia
September 18, 2009: Sexual Attitudes And Perceptions
Of Gendered Sexual Roles From The Perspective Of Urban South African Women
By: Duduzile Phindile Mashinini, M.S. (2009 Experimental Psychology, N.M.U.)
This study explored the harbored and perceived sexual attitudes in two groups of South African women, and their
experiences with gender roles in sexual relationships. The purpose of this research was to examine the role of
gender with regard to female HIV/AIDS vulnerability in a population of South African women who are not in the
high-risk groups. Educated professional adult females and female college students in South Africa reported on
how they experienced their intimate relationships and they also reported on their perceptions of male attitudes
on sex-related issues. The study utilized a two-part questionnaire with Grounded Theory-based qualitative
analysis and quantitative components that revealed similarities and differences between the two groups.
The study generated a nuanced understanding of the gendered sexual dynamics that affect the HIV risk status of
these two groups. The study concludes that although the two groups are well informed about HIV risk, the adult
women remain at higher risk of infection due to the difficulty of integrating safety precautions in the current
gendered dynamics.
September 25, 2009: Moral Obligations Of Professionals in
a Psychiatric Hospital
By: David E. Cooper, Ph.D.,Professor, Department of Philosophy, N.M.U.
"Professional" is a normative concept that gives the person with the title fiduciary moral obligations to clients
or patients. I will discuss levels of moral obligation to clarify the logic behind any moral claim and the place
of Professional Codes of Ethics in the larger Moral world. I will then examine "autonomy" as a key moral value for
guiding clinical interventions and practice. I will also review some criticisms of the idea of "paternalism" to
address why the concept is problematic from the moral point of view. I will then discuss the difficult task of
balancing the value of moral autonomy with the need for paternalism in settings where a patient's capacity for
autonomy is compromised by mental illness. Finally I will discuss ways that the potential for moral drift or what
Hanna Arndt calls the banality of evil in paternalistic settings can be confronted by using the ideal of future
oriented consent and/or hypothetical consent along with peer review accountability procedures.
November 6, 2009: Gay Spies
By: Chet R. DeFonso, Ph.D.,Associate Professor, Department of History, N.M.U.
Is there truth in the supposition that "homosexuals make good spies"? Some say that homosexual people are socially
conditioned to be good at keeping secrets. Others have suggested there is something "biologically innate" about the
structure of the "homosexual brain" that lends itself to espionage. Debate and discussion about "gay spies" mirrors
the general discourse about homosexuality: whether spies/homosexuals are shaped and developed by the cultural
environment in which they live (the "social constructionist" perspective), or whether spies/homosexuals are biologically
"hard-wired" in their identities and behaviors.
November 13, 2009: Vision and Touch: Testing the Ramachandran
Mirror Box
By: Christopher B. Robichaux, M.S. Candidate (2009), Experimental Psychology, N.M.U.
A fundamental cornerstone in the field of psychology is how humans perceive the world around them. As technology has
advanced, researchers are turning to computers to provide greater experimental control and data collection methods.
However, this use of technology requires funding, special equipment, and specialized knowledge that can be prohibitive
to some researchers. This study seeks to use a simple Ramachandran Mirror Box (RMB) to test the differences between
the visual and haptic (touch) sensory systems. The findings suggest that human perception is pulled towards the visual
sensory system in some conditions and shows the viability of the RMB as a perceptual testing apparatus.
November 20, 2009: Robots With Purpose
By: Jeffrey Horn, Ph.D., Associate Professor,Department of Mathematics and Computer
Science, N.M.U.
The recent acquisition of a Mobile Robots' Pioneer 3DX opens up new possibilities for behavior-based robotics research
at NMU. Up until now, our robots have been limited to stimulus-response behaviors, such as obstacle avoidance, light
seeking, and wall following. The Pioneer 3DX, with its commercial-grade hardware, sixteen sonar sensor ring, and
algorithms for localization and navigation, allows us to experiment with higher-level behaviors. These behaviors might
include: navigating to a goal location on a map, patrolling a building, or delivering items to specific destinations.
With the addition of a video camera we plan to add object seeking and retrieval to Pioneer's repertoire. This
presentation will feature a live demonstration of Pioneer's current capabilities, including navigation of (part of) Gries
Hall. We will follow this with a discussion of potential future capabilities. Finally, we will mention some of the
human-robot interaction issues that have come up, discuss how we might deal with these, and ask what roles such robots
can play on our campus. (Please note that anyone unable to attend the colloquium will likely have another chance to see
and hear much of the same material, as we plan a follow-up presentation in early 2010, in one or the other of our departments.)
