Faculty Research Interests
Paul Andronis – Experimental analysis of economic contingencies that give rise to and maintain various patterns of social behavior: natural evolution of a cooperative relation between laboratory pigeons. Animal models of psychopathology: characteristics of operant headbanging by pigeons, and the clinical implications of normal sources of such pathological patterns. Some adaptive origins of creative behavior: the synthetic effects of contingencies of reinforcement. Attempted replication of classic experiments on the formation of conditional reflexes in the control of heart-rate in dog's: search for a missing unconditional reflex, and what we found instead. Stimulus equivalence learning by humans: results appear to depend crucially upon methods of probe presentations. Ability of typical preschool environments to support an Internet-based early reading program already proven effective when used in children's’ own homes.
Alan Beauchamp - is currently developing projects to examine the relationship between individual differences on salient dimensions of personality, lifestyle choices, and mental health outcome in college students, but continues his strong interest in the effects of early experience on neuropsychological development. He is also developing studies to compare the quality of web vs. classroom instruction formats on content mastery, the effects of course format choice on web course performance, and the role of individual differences in personality and format preferences.
Sheila Burns - Lead person on Upper Peninsula-wide needs assessment for the center for Gerontological Studies at N.M.U.; focusing on education and training needs of providers of services to older adults.
Susan Kapla - Current research interests are the functional assessment of problem behavior and the effect of differential outcomes on discrimination learning in dogs.
Charles Leith & Sheila Burns - Spin Lab: Sex differences are large on paper-and- pencil mental rotation tasks but small or nonexistent on computer reaction time mental rotation tasks. Are the two tasks really different? Could they involve different problem solving strategies? Is mental rotation a potential assessment tool for cognitive impairment in cases of Parkinson's Disease?
Bradley Olson - main research is in the area of intrinsic motivation and competition. Currently involved in research examining disparities between actual self and ideal self and the development and prevention of depression as well as the effects of video games on aggression.
Mary Pelton-Cooper - Professional interests are psychopathology, Human sexuality, the ethical issues in clinical practice, Interpersonal, Relational and Cognitive Behavioral treatment of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, and treatment of adult developmental concerns. Main research interests are qualitative research of relational connections, and the etiology of eating disorders
Adam Prus - Psychopharmacology of therapeutic drugs. In particular, we are heavily involved in seeking better treatments for cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia, by testing compounds that offer high selectively for specific receptors in the brain. We are also interested in evaluating the effects of novel drugs used for the treatment of bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, and various other neuropsychiatric diseases.
Francella Quinnell - (1) Relationship between marital satisfaction and academic achievement/demographics - married college students; (2) use of psychological tests in child custody evaluations; (3) Maternal postpartum stress and its impact on child development; (4) parenting; (5) young children's mental health issues.
Maya Sen - research focuses on the relation between gender development and cognition in early childhood. Specifically, she and her students examine the ways that infants' gender-related cognition (e.g., stereotype knowledge, knowing what sex they are) affects their processing and structuring of gender-related information. Current projects include examining the effects that gender stereotypes have on toddlers' memory, and developing new measures to assess what children under the age of three know about gender. In a second line of research, she is examining gender stereotypes and memory in adults.
Karen Suksi - research focuses on the use of quilting and coping with significant life stress research. She is also compiling and coding exit survey responses for our Early Childhood program.
Harry Whitaker - [1] History of Psychology and Neuroscience research with particular interest in early 19th century France and Scotland, transitional models of brain function in the 18th century, origins and development of medieval cell doctrine particularly fom the 12th to 16th century. [2] Individual differences in brain and behavior.
Contact the person named above if you have an interest in participating in any of the listed research projects.
