Swift Thinking: Fall 2006
updated 11/17/06
- Registration
Information
- New Faculty in the Psychology Department
- News from the Undergraduate Psychology Association (UPA)
- Lab Notes
- Other Department News
- Funds for Summer Research
A table showing our anticipated course offerings for winter is available online. Please check this table and the registrar's webpages for updates. Descriptions of psychology courses are available through the registrar's webpages.
The course plan for the 2006-2007 Academic Year with all the department's offerings can be found online as well, to assist you in planning for your Spring courses.
Preregistering for Winter Courses
The psychology department will be offering preregistration through CAESAR for many of our courses the week prior to regular registration. To see which courses are available for preregistration, look at the “prereg” column in our Winter 2007 course table . All students listed as psychology or cognitive science majors or minors in the registrar's computerized system should be able to preregister through CAESAR for these courses.
Preregistration times are announced by the Registrar's Office. You can preregister for at most two courses.
Most courses not available for preregistration are ones for which students need department or instructor consent in order to enroll. Details are given in this newsletter and in our Winter 2007 course table .
Psychology courses are very popular, and they often fill during registration. What should you do if a course you want to take has closed? That depends on which course it is. This article and our Winter 2007 course table describe the procedures for our different courses.
You can add 110, 201, 215, 303, 324, or 365 during registration by checking CAESAR directly and seeing if an opening is available. No wait lists will be kept for these courses, and no permission numbers will be needed. Just go ahead and add the course on your own. (All of these courses, with the exception of 110, are available for preregistration by psychology and cognitive science majors and minors.)
For Cog Sci 210, Psych 204, and some 300-level courses – 306, 312-2, 314, 339, 364, 386 - we will be using the "electronic wait list" function on CAESAR. If you try to add a course that is full, CAESAR will tell you that there are no openings and will ask if you would like to be on the wait list. As students drop the course, we will check the electronic wait list and send permission numbers to students who can now enroll.
To get on a wait list for 340-Psychology and Law, email the instructor, Prof. Sara Broaders (s-broaders@northwestern.edu). Include information on why you would like to take the course.
205, 316, 357, 358, 397, 398, and 399 will continue to require department permission throughout the registration period. See the sections below on Registering for Psych 205 and on Other Courses Requiring Department or Instructor Permission for additional information on these courses.
All psychology courses will require department permission during the add period (the first week of winter classes). Course professors will prepare lists of students whom they have agreed to add to their courses, and these students will then receive permission numbers.
Registering for Psych 205-Research Methods
You will need a permission number in order to register for Psych 205-Research Methods in Psychology. Psychology and cognitive science majors and minors interested in this course should go to the department office, Swift 102, the week prior to registration to get permission numbers. You should be able to use your permission number to sign up for the course during preregistration or during your regular registration time. Remember that Psych 201-Statistical Methods in Psychology is a prerequisite for Psych 205.
WHEN TO GET YOUR PSYCH 205 PERMISSION NUMBER
Seniors |
Tuesday, November 7 |
1:00 - 4:00 |
Juniors |
Wednesday, November 8 |
9:00 - noon |
Sophomores |
Wednesday, November 8 |
1:00 - 4:00 |
If you are unable to go to the office at your scheduled time, then go as soon after that as you can.
Other Courses Requiring Department or Instructor Permission
Departmental permission is required to register for Psych 316 – Experimental Social Psychology with Professor Molden. Prerequisites are Psych 204 and 205. Interested students should set up a brief meeting with Professor Molden to talk about the class. To set up the meeting, email Professor Molden at molden@northwestern.edu . Professor Molden will give Ms. Ginger Gilmore in the psychology department office a list of students who are eligible to enroll. Ms. Gilmore will then email permission numbers to these students so that they can register for the class.
You will also need permission to register for Psych 357 – Advanced Seminar in Personality, Clinical, or Social: Child Psychopathology with Professor Durbin. The professor requires that students have taken Psych 205-Research Methods in Psychology, and either Psych 218 or Psych 303. Students should go to the department office and see Ms. Ginger Gilmore during preregistration to request permission numbers, according to the following schedule:
| Seniors | Tuesday, November 7 | 1:00-4:00 |
| Juniors | Wednesday, November 8 | 9:00-noon |
| Sophomores | Wednesday, November 8 | 1:00-4:00 |
Ms. Gilmore will check that you have completed the prerequisites for the course, and give you a permission number if there is room in the course. For more information on this class, see the section on special courses .
Psych 358 – Advanced Seminar in Cognition or Neuroscience: Complex Cognition with Professor Rips is another course for which you will need permission to register. You must have taken Psych 205 to register. Interested students should email Professor Rips ( rips@northwestern.edu ). In the email, indicate what relevant classes you have already taken as well as your reasons for wanting to take this class. Professor Rips will give Ms. Ginger Gilmore in the psychology department office a list of students who are eligible to enroll. Ms. Gilmore will then email permission numbers to these students so that they can register for the class. For more information on this course, see the section on special courses.
One great way to learn more about psychological research is to become actively involved in research activities through Psych 399-Independent Study or the two-quarter Psych 397-Advanced Supervised Research. This is especially valuable for students considering graduate study in psychology, and it can be an educational and enjoyable experience for others as well. To enroll in Psych 397 or Psych 399, you should get an application in the department office, fill it out, and have it signed by the professor with whom you will be working. Then, take the signed application to the department office to get a permission number for the course; permission numbers will be available beginning Tuesday, November 7. Remember that Psych 205-Research Methods in Psychology is a prerequisite for Psych 397 . For more information on 397 and 399 -- including the differences between them, how they count towards requirements, and tips on finding a research adviser -- see our webpage on doing research for course credit .
Students who will be taking Psych 398-Senior Honors Seminar next quarter will also need permission numbers. These will be available in the department office beginning Tuesday, November 7, for everyone on the list of students participating in our honors program.
Special Courses For Winter Quarter
Psych 314 – Special Topics: Memory and the Brain
This course, taught by Professor Routtenberg, will address the following questions: Where are memories stored in brain? How are those memories stored in particular neural networks? What synaptic modifications take place to alter the network properties? What molecular events occur on both sides of the synapse to modify this nodal point? What are the latest attempts to deal with disorders of memory in aging such as Alzheimer's disease? What new information are gene targeting studies in knockout mice and conditional mutants providing? What do brain imaging studies tell us about human memory? Psych 212 or Psych 312 are recommended; the 210 (Biological Science) series is also recommended.
Psych 357 – Advanced Seminar in Personality, Clinical, or Social: Child Psychopathology
Professor Durbin will teach this course. This course will cover major psychological disorders of childhood, including issues of prevalence, classification, phenomenology, course, comorbidity, and major etiological theories. Lectures and discussions will focus on examining the current state of research on childhood psychopathology, and will be organized according to the theoretical framework of developmental psychopathology. Prerequisites for this course are Psych 205 and either Psych 218 or Psych 303. This course counts toward the Column A (social/personality/clinical) and upper-level research requirements for psychology majors. See the above section on courses requiring department or instructor permission for more details on how to register for this course.
Psych 358 - Advanced Seminar in Cognition or Neuroscience: Complex Cognition
Professor Lance Rips will teach this Advanced Seminar. This class focuses on how people are able to think about information that goes beyond what they can learn from experience. Discussion will center on how people can understand abstract objects (for example, numbers), how they make inferences about matters that go beyond empirical facts, and how they are able to conceive possible situations that are never actually realized. Readings draw on psychological experiments and parallel research in other fields, such as philosophy and linguistics. Topics may include mathematical thinking, counterfactual and causal reasoning, and concepts of natural categories and individuals. The prerequisite for this course is Psych 205-Research Methods in Psychology. This course counts toward the Column B (cognitive and neuroscience) and upper-level research requirements for psychology majors. See the above section on courses requiring department or instructor permission for more details on how to register for this course.
Psych 364 – Topics in Cognitive Neuroscience
Professor Jung-Beeman will be teaching this course, the goal of which is to introduce students to selected special topics in the field of Cognitive Neuroscience. A major aim of Cognitive Neuroscience is to bridge the gap between cognitive science, communication science, systems and cellular neuroscience, brain imaging, and computational neuroscience. The selected topics will illustrate examples where these bridges are being made. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of Cognitive Neuroscience, prior exposure to neuroscience, mathematics and/or cognitive psychology will be helpful. Prospective students should communicate with Professor Jung-Beeman or Professor Jim Houk to discuss whether their previous studies will adequately prepare them for this course.
Psych 365 – The Brain and Cognition
This course, taught by Professor Booth, is cross-listed with CSD 303. It is new to the psychology department. The purpose of this course is to examine the neural bases of human cognitive development with special consideration of learning and plasticity in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potential (ERP) studies will be emphasized.
NEW FACULTY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Joan Chiao comes to Northwestern just a few months after completing her Ph.D at Harvard. Her primary research and teaching interests involve using a cultural neuroscience framework to work through questions of how culture and biology interact to shape social and perceptual processes during development. She uses a wide variety of experimental tools to work through these questions, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERP), and genotyping and behavioral paradigms. Professor Chiao says that at the broadest level, she's interested in finding ways to bridge conceptual and methodological gaps between disciplines within psychology and neuroscience, as well as the gaps between the field of psychology and the real world. She will teach courses on social and affective neuroscience, including an introductory undergraduate course on the neural bases of social and emotional behavior. In her spare time, Professor Chiao enjoys ultimate Frisbee, tennis, and cephalopods.
Renee Engeln-Maddox is a new addition to the faculty—having completed her Ph.D at Loyola University Chicago and taught at a number of colleges around the Chicago area. Throughout the academic year, she will teach Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, Psychology of Gender, Psychopathology, and an Advanced Seminar. She will also continue her research, which concerns the link between images of women in the media and woman's perceptions about their own bodies. In particular, she's focused on examining how and why women “talk back” to the images they see in the media, and whether this type of critical processing is related to lower levels of body image disturbance. After measuring this critical processing primarily through in-depth qualitative data, Professor Engeln-Maddox has begun to focus on the development and validation of a self-report scale to assess critical processing of these images more efficiently. In her free time, Professor Engeln-Maddox enjoys running with her German shepherd and reading.
Steve Franconeri is another new professor in the department--one of the two additions to the Cognitive area. Like Professor Chiao, Professor Franconeri received his Ph.D from Harvard--though he's been a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia since 2004. His work focuses on the problem of not being able to process everything at once--and what happens when we must focus our attention on the most relevant information. His research focuses on the tools that we use to select visual information, and how these tools are applied. He has studied questions such as: Can we select more than one thing at a time? How do we compare the features of two objects, or judge their spatial relations? How much of attention is automatic, and how much is under our control? How do we prioritize visual information over time, when viewing a scene, face, or painting? Professor Franconeri will teach a course called, ‘Vision: From Attention to Aesthetics.' In his spare time he also enjoys ultimate Frisbee, as well as cooking and coffee.
David Rapp is another addition to the cognitive area as well as the Learning Sciences program in the School of Education . He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2000. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychology and Classics Department at Tufts University from 2000 to 2002, and was a faculty member in the Department of Educational Psychology and the Center of Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota from 2002 to 2006. Professor Rapp's research focuses on understanding reading comprehension. Along those lines, he'll teach courses in reading comprehension and an education psycholinguistics course which will derive practical implications from research on language comprehension and production. In the future, Professor Rapp is looking forward to doing more research in additional fields that interest him like multimedia comprehension, procedural learning, and science visualizations. He enjoys working out, card games, and candy.
NEWS FROM THE UPA
by Michelle Rheinschmidt (m-rheinschmidt@northwestern.edu), UPA President
The Undergraduate Psychology Association (UPA) would like to welcome new majors and minors to the department! The UPA is dedicated to providing academic, social, and service opportunities to anyone with an interest in psychology. The executive board, with the help of our advisers, Professors Durbin and Finkel, is in the process of planning some exciting events for this year. We sincerely hope that you will take advantage of these opportunities.
Before we begin looking ahead to our upcoming events, we would like to share some news from our organization. Last spring, UPA members nominated outstanding professors from the department for the UPA Teaching Award, an award that recognizes professors who are highly dedicated to teaching undergraduates. We would like to congratulate Professor Susan Hespos, our recipient of the 2005-2006 UPA Distinguished Teaching Award .
Last spring, we also held an information session about research opportunities in the Psychology Department. Professors and graduate students from all areas of psychology recruited students to work in their labs. Some students looked for opportunities to earn credit towards their major, while others looked for work-study or volunteer positions.
This quarter, the UPA kicked off the school year with a social for current and prospective majors and minors. Upperclassmen shared advice with new and prospective majors, and everyone enjoyed a pizza dinner! For those of you who missed the social, we will be posting a transcript of the Q & A portion of this event on our website soon ( http://groups.northwestern.edu/upa/index.html).
For those of you interested in attending graduate school in psychology, we have a couple of upcoming events that may be of interest to you. First, on October 28 th , the UPA will be co-sponsoring free, practice GRE and Psychology GRE tests through Kaplan. Next, on November 7 th , we will be hosting a Graduate School Panel in Tech L361 from 6-8 p.m. Professors Durbin, Finkel, Routtenberg, Suzuki, and Zinbarg will be offering advice about graduate school admissions (and more) in all of the major areas of psychology.
Lastly, the UPA is working with OASIS to plan a volunteer event at Greenwood Care psychiatric rehabilitation center. The date and time of this event will be announced over the UPA listserv. If you would like to join our listserv, please email our Vice President, Debbie Kim, (d-kim-1@northwestern.edu). We encourage you to do so because we will be sending out more detailed information about our events, as well as announcements about psychology-related opportunities both on-campus and in the community. We also encourage you to email the UPA executive board members with questions you have – we will do our best to answer them or to get you in touch with faculty members who can. Also, please email us with ideas and suggestions for events because we greatly appreciate your input. We hope to see you at our upcoming events!
The UPA Board:
President: Michelle Rheinschmidt (m-rheinschmidt@northwestern.edu)
Vice President: Debbie Kim (d-kim-1@northwestern.edu)
Treasurer: Liana Rizzi (l-rizzi@northwestern.edu)
Secretary: Christina Katsos (c-katsos@northwestern.edu)
Academic Chair: Stacy Grossman (s-grossman@northwestern.edu)
Social Chair: Marianne Abouyared (m-abouyared@northwestern.edu)
Webmaster: Dara Wathanapaisal (dw@northwestern.edu)
Chiao Lab
How do cultural and biological forces give rise to everyday emotion and social interaction? The Chiao lab uses behavioral, brain imaging, and genotyping to understand universal and culturally-specific mechanisms underlying emotional and social processes. The lab is always looking for curious and dedicated undergraduates to work with us on research projects both during the academic year as well as the summer. If you're interested in participating in the lab, please email Professor Chiao.
Franconeri Lab
The Visual Attention and Cognition Lab explores how the visual system manages the overwhelming amount of information presented by the visual world. We study the tools that people use to sift through this information, such as eye movements, internal visual selection of location and features, and visual memory. We also study how these tools are used in seemingly simple processes such as the perception of spatial relations, to more complex processes like face and scene perception, or selecting objects that refuse to stay in one place. Our lab uses both simple response time and accuracy measures, as well as eye tracking and ERP. Students interested in volunteering or earning course credit in the lab should contact Professor Franconeri by email.
McAdams Lab
Graduate and undergraduate students in Psychology and in the School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) work with Dan P. McAdams and post-doctoral fellows Regina Logan and Brad Olson on a wide range of research projects on adult development, personality, and psychological health and well-being as part of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives , an interdisciplinary research effort funded by the Foley Family Foundation. Current projects include (1) an intensive study of politics, religion, and the life story among 200 midlife Christians; (2) research into how psychotherapy patients narrate their experiences in therapy (conducted by Jonathan Adler, doctoral student in Psychology); (3) life narratives of ecological activists (conducted by Tiffany Simons, doctoral student in Learning Sciences); (4) the psychology of adoption (conducted by Miriam Klevan, doctoral student in Human Development and Social Policy); and (5) planning for a 10-year longitudinal study of personality change, mental health, and the social ecology of everyday life among adults between the ages of 55 and 65, to begin next year. Northwestern undergraduates who are currently involved in Foley Center projects include Bryn Gauer, Matt Braslow, Jen Daniels, and (recently graduated) Ashley Mason.
Rapp Lab
In the Reading Comprehension Laboratory, we examine processes that underlie memory and language by integrating perspectives from cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and literary theory. Our psycholinguistic projects focus on understanding the role of higher-order cognitive processes in the service of comprehension. Current studies investigate a) naturalistic experiences of suspense, and readers' preferences for characters or desires for events, to assess how they influence ongoing comprehension of texts, b) conditions that facilitate or impede the likelihood readers will update prior knowledge, and how those conditions lead to comprehension successes and failures (i.e., false memory), and c) applications of our understanding of these mechanisms in the hopes of fostering effective learning experiences. We enthusiastically encourage undergraduates interested in psycholinguistics, the learning sciences, memory processes, and any of the above topics to contact us for information about becoming actively involved in our lab activities. Students can earn course credit working as research assistants in the lab. E-mail Professor David Rapp at rapp@northwestern.edu for further information.
Rosenfeld Lab
Professor Rosenfeld is pleased to announce that his lab has funding from the Department of Defense and other security agencies to continue research focused on building better lie detectors based on brain waves.
The Department of Psychology is fortunate to be the academic home of one of this year's winners of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (popularly referred to as the “genius grant”). The MacArthur Foundation gives this award for “creativity, originality and potential to make important contributions in the future.” Professor Jennifer Richeson was honored for her work examining the behavioral and cognitive consequences of prejudice and racial stereotyping and the dynamics of interracial interactions.
FUNDS FOR SUMMER RESEARCH
It's not winter yet, but it's still not too soon to start thinking about summer – and about the possibility of spending your summer doing research in our department. Each summer the Psychology Department offers two or more undergraduates a Benton J. Underwood Summer Research Fellowship . Professor Underwood was chair of the psychology department and a distinguished researcher in the field of memory. He worked to establish the fund that makes these fellowships possible. Last year, the amount of the fellowship was $3000.
Acceptance of an Underwood Fellowship implies a commitment to spend most of your summer working on research here at Northwestern with a psychology professor. Your exact schedule will be worked out with the professor who supervises your research. Both current juniors and current sophomores can apply for this award. However, priority will be given to current juniors. Work on an Underwood project often serves as the foundation for a senior honors project. (Receipt of an Underwood fellowship does not guarantee acceptance to our honors program.)
If you are interested in doing research this coming summer, you should look into other funding sources too. All Underwood applicants should also apply for a Northwestern University Summer Research Grant from the Undergraduate Research Grants Committee (URGC). Weinberg College also has funds for summer research by students; see the webpage on Weinberg College undergraduate research funds . Different funding sources have different selection criteria, and applying to more than one will enhance your chances of receiving an award. (Sophomores interested in doing research this coming summer are especially encouraged to apply for Weinberg College funds; both the Underwood selection committee and the URGC generally give priority to juniors.)
To apply for an Underwood Fellowship, follow these steps:
1. Choose a faculty member to supervise your research and talk with him or her about what you will be doing and what your time commitment will be. You should also talk with the faculty member about the need for Institutional Review Board approval for your planned project.
2. Prepare an application in which you include (a) a statement describing your plans for this research; this can be the same proposal you submit to the university's grants committee; (b) a copy of your transcript (an unofficial transcript is fine); and (c) information about your general interests in psychology, your relevant course work, your previous research experience, and anything else that you think is relevant.
3. Have the faculty member who will supervise your research write a confidential letter of support for your application.
4. Get your application and letter of support to Joan Linsenmeier by the deadline for submitting summer grant applications to the University's Undergraduate Research Grants Committee . The due date is Wednesday, March 14, 2007.
