Tuesday, April 13, 2010

“Psychology Students Earn Honors” plus 3 more

“Psychology Students Earn Honors” plus 3 more

Psychology Students Earn Honors

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 07:29 AM PDT

MANHATTAN, Kansas - Several Kansas State University undergraduate students in psychology earned honors for their research presentations at the recent Great Plains Student Psychology Conference in St. Joseph, Mo.

The students are all undergraduate researchers in K-State's Visual Cognition Laboratory and work with Lester Loschky, an assistant professor of psychology at K-State. The lab does research dealing with scene perception and its real world applications. Lab researchers investigate how people perceive, attend to and remember scenes and the objects in them, thus spanning the traditional areas of perception and cognition.

Students earning honors include:

Margarita McQuade, junior in psychology, Ellinwood, first place, co-presenter of "Attention modulates gist performance between central and peripheral vision."

From Manhattan: Gabriel Hughes, senior in psychology, first place, co-presenter of "Attention modulates gist performance between central and peripheral vision"; and Joshua Davis, senior in psychology and sociology, third place, co-presenter of "The effects of image rotation in scene gist recognition in ground-based versus aerial views."

Christopher Wallace, senior in psychology, Olathe, second place, co-presenter of "The effects of story structure and order on recognition memory for a picture story"; Ryan Ringer, senior in psychology, Prairie Village, third place, co-presenter of "The effects of image rotation in scene gist recognition in ground-based versus aerial views"; and Caitlyn Badke, senior in psychology, Wichita, first place, co-presenter of "Attention modulates gist performance between central and peripheral vision."

From out-of-state: Suzanne Goddard, senior in psychology, La Verne, Calif., second place, co-presenter of "The effects of story structure and order on recognition memory for a picture story."

In addition, two of Loschky's graduate students, Tyler Freeman, doctoral student in psychology, Olathe, and Adam Larson, master's student in psychology, Ames, Iowa, worked closely with the undergraduates in both carrying out the research and preparing them for their conference presentations.

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University of the Rockies Releases Its First Psychology Journal

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 05:00 AM PDT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the University of the Rockies, a graduate school specializing in master's and doctoral degree programs in psychology, has released a new peer-reviewed professional journal to showcase the work of practitioners and scholars in the fields of psychology, organizational development, leadership and behavior.

(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100413/LA85195)

The first Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture explores contemporary topics in today's society that affect the dynamics of the diverse workplace. Content areas involve counseling, psychotherapy, health psychology, neuropsychology, assessment, ethics, globalization, management, systems, and leadership in the context of organizational culture.

John Wiley & Sons, a publishing company founded in 1807, was best known for its work with Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and other 19th century American literary giants. Today the company is a global leader in the academic, professional, scientific, technical, medical, scholarly and consumer markets.

"The journal promotes research on the effects of diversity within the realm of religion, gender, race and ethnicity," Dr. Charlita Shelton, president of University of the Rockies, said. "Publishing the journal confirms the university's commitment to support and participate in scholarship."

The editorial staff of this quarterly journal includes Dr. Shelton, executive editor of the journal; Dr. Kenneth Sherman, managing editor; Dr. Louis Hoffman, core faculty at the university, editor of University of the Rockies Press and also co-editor-in-chief; and Dr. Steve Kirkpatrick, the university's dean of the school of organizational leadership and co-editor-in-chief.

"Creating the university's first journal is an honor," Dr. Sherman said. "With the editorial team comprised of clinicians and consultants, who also serve as university faculty, our knowledge and service in the field will now be shared through this journal."

The audience for the journal is students, scholars, theorists, clinicians and consultants in the dynamic fields of psychology, organizational leadership, development and behavior.

The University of the Rockies continues to show its dedication to publishing quality work on clinical psychology, religion, spirituality, business and organizational leadership, health and well-being. In addition to the release of the new journal, the university operates the University of the Rockies Press which has published eight books, some having made the Amazon bestseller list.

About John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. was founded in 1807, during the Jefferson presidency. In the early years, Wiley was best known for the works of Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and other 19th century American literary giants. By the turn of the century, Wiley was established as a leading global enterprise providing must-have content and services for the academic, professional, scientific, technical, medical, scholarly and consumer markets. Wiley was voted one of the world's most respected companies by the Financial Times; one of Forbes' Biggest Best Companies; and "One of the 20 Best Book Publishing Companies to Work For" by Book Business magazine. For more information on Wiley, please visit www.wiley.com.

About University of the Rockies

University of the Rockies is a graduate school specializing in master's and doctorate degree programs in psychology. Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (www.ncahlc.org), classes are offered online and at the University's Colorado Springs, Colorado, campus. For more information, please visit www.rockies.edu or call Shari Rodriguez, director of Public Relations, at 866.621.0124 x2513.

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Physicist Recommends Psychology Research to Improve Mine Safety

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 02:10 PM PDT

"Now is the time to make some major changes in the safety of mining," said Steve Shope, Ph.D. "The integration of human systems into the mining industry is a great example where major safety improvements can be made in the industry."

Shope, who holds a Ph.D. in physics, worked in the U.S. Bureau of Mines trapped-miner research program as in-house senior engineer and technical project officer for external research contracts in the 1980s. He also was the Bureau of Mines technical representative to the Mine Safety and Health Administration Seismic Location System.

For the last 2 years, Shope has volunteered his time to work with APA's Science Government Relations staff to advocate for the value of behavioral research as it applies to mine safety in hopes that Congress will fund a comprehensive study of mine safety issues at the National Academy of Sciences.

A Self-Sufficient Community

Shope told APA that while the mining industry has a strong culture of community, it is also a culture of self-sufficiency. Therefore, he explained, "there is not a lot of intermingling of outside cultures and technologies into the mining industry."

Shope pointed to Human Systems Integration (HSI), a growing field of science that determines how humans and complex systems can be better integrated, as a way to address this problem. According to Shope, this field encompasses human factors training, command and control, decision making, fatigue, teamwork and ergonomics.

"Human factors is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system," he explained. "It is my feeling the integration of HSI research and methodologies can make a tremendous improvement in mine safety and mine efficiencies."

Shope said HSI could bolster mine safety through improved training, including the design of training, measuring training effectiveness, measuring training retention, tailoring training to the individual and teaching effective decision-making.

HSI research also could be applied to the human factors of equipment. For example, Shope said that the Self-Contained Self-Rescuer (SCSR), a portable breathing apparatus commonly used in mining, "is a prime example of equipment being poorly designed from a human factors standpoint."

"We've seen in several recent disasters where only about 25 percent of the units were successfully activated," Shope said. "These units must be designed to easily be activated during times of limited visibility, stress and poor environmental conditions. These data point to both poor training and poor SCSR design. However, training should never be a crutch for poor equipment design."

The MSHA Conflict

Shope added that he sees a conflict with MSHA acting as both a regulatory/enforcement body and as an accident/disaster investigative body. He used the aviation industry as an example of a different kind of system – the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the regulatory and enforcement body, while the National Transportation Safety Board operates independently as the accident investigation entity.

"Often, certain regulations and/or regulatory practices can contribute to an accident or disaster," he said. "If one compares the official MSHA report on the Sago disaster to the independent report commissioned by Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, we see a much less biased analysis of the accident."

Finally, Shope pointed out that survivors of disasters like coal mine explosions may suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Interviewing these survivors therefore requires special skills.

"Two survivors of the Sago disaster committed suicide – it was reported that the investigators made them feel responsible for the deaths of their fellow miners," Shope said.

The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists.

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VIP psychology may have set fate of Poland flight

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 11:17 AM PDT

Polish President Lech Kaczynski likely put pressure on his pilot to land at Smolensk, because he felt left out of the Katyn memorial ceremonies, says a New Zealand academic.

"It will be no surprise if the pilot felt unable to resist pressure from the president and the top brass of the Polish military," Canterbury University professor Denis Dutton said in the Los Angeles Times.

The plane crashed in fog, killing all 96 people on board.

Writing with another professor of philosophy -- Adam Chmielewski at the University of Wroclaw in Poland, an expert on mental illness in politicians -- Prof Dutton said President Kaczynski may have felt left out of the ceremonies that had taken place for three days for the anniversary of the Katyn massacre of Polish soldiers during World War 2.

A political rival, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, had stolen the show in commemorating the mass murder at Katyn, "and he was eager to reclaim some of the limelight", said the two professors.

The trip was not an official presidential visit, and it took place after months of President Kaczynski's insistence on making the journey with a substantial entourage of MPs, highest-ranking military commanders, ministers, administrators and personal staff.

Prof Dutton said earlier in his term, in August 2008, the president flew to Georgia to express his support for its isolated president, Mikheil Saakashvili, demanding that the pilot land in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, despite the threat of ground fire from Russian forces.

The pilot refused to endanger the plane and landed instead in Azerbaijan, which angered the president.

The pilots on the doomed weekend flight were warned of bad weather in Smolensk and advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere.

"Diversion would have been a reasonable decision, except that either alternative would have made the president and his entourage late for the ceremonies at the mass graves," Prof Dutton said.

Russian investigators have said there appeared to be no technical problems with the Soviet-made Tu-154.

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