Psychological Sciences publications and presentations (MU)
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Items in this collection are public presentations made by Department of Psychological Sciences. faculty, staff, and students, either alone or as co-authors, and which may or may not have been published in an alternate format. Items may contain more than one file type.
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Item Patient judgments about hypertension control : the role of variability, trends, and outliers in visualized blood pressure data(Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2019) Shaffer, V. A.; Wegier, P.; Valentine, K. D.; Belden, J. L.; Canfield, S. M.; Patil, S. J.; Popescu, M.; Steege, L. M.; Jain, A.; Koopman, R. J.; Psychological SciencesBackground: Uncontrolled hypertension is a significant health problem in the United States, even though multiple drugs exist to effectively treat this chronic disease. Objective: As part of a larger project developing data visualizations to support shared decision making about hypertension treatment, we conducted a series of studies to understand how perceptions of hypertension control were impacted by data variations inherent in the visualization of blood pressure (BP) data. Methods: In 3 Web studies, participants (internet sample of patients with hypertension) reviewed a series of vignettes depicting patients with hypertension; each vignette included a graph of a patient's BP. We examined how data visualizations that varied by BP mean and SD (Study 1), the pattern of change over time (Study 2), and the presence of extreme values (Study 3) affected patients' judgments about hypertension control and the need for a medication change. Results: Participants' judgments about hypertension control were significantly influenced by BP mean and SD (Study 1), data trends (whether BP was increasing or decreasing over time--Study 2), and extreme values (ie, outliers--Study 3). Conclusions: Patients' judgment about hypertension control is influenced both by factors that are important predictors of hypertension related-health outcomes (eg, BP mean) and factors that are not (eg, variability and outliers). This study highlights the importance of developing data visualizations that direct attention toward clinically meaningful information.Item Women’s preference for masculine traits is disrupted by images of male-on-female violence : [data](2014) Li, Yaoran; Winegard, Benjamin; Puts, David A.; Welling, Lisa L. M.; Geary, David C.; Bailey, Drew H.; University of Missouri-Columbia. College of Arts and Sciences. Department of Psychological Sciences.Women's preferences for men's masculinized faces and voices were assessed after women (n = 331) were primed with images of male-on-male aggression, male-on-female aggression, pathogens, and neutral scenes. Male-on-male aggression and pathogen primes were associated with increased preference for masculine traits, but the same effect emerged in the neutral condition. We show the increased preference for masculine traits was due to repeated exposure to these traits, not the priming images themselves. Images of male-on-female aggression were an exception; these elicited feelings of disgust and anger appeared to disrupt the preference for masculinized traits. The results suggest women process men's facial and vocal traits as signals of aggressive potential and lose any preference for these traits with cues indicating men might direct this aggression toward them.Item Understanding the Risk for Neuropsychiatric Disorders Using Functional Brain Imaging(2010) Kerns, John Gerald, 1971-; University of Missouri (System); Missouri Life Sciences Summit (2010: University of Missouri--Kansas City)MU has recently opened the Brain Imaging Center, a research dedicated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) facility. Research at the center is focused on understanding the nature of basic cognitive and emotional processes as well as the role of disturbances in those processes to understand neuropsychiatric disorders. For example, research at the center has focused on understanding the nature of risk for schizophrenia and for alcohol addiction. In research with patients, we have found that people with schizophrenia exhibit dysfunction in multiple brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. Using functional MRI, we have found that people at-risk for schizophrenia only exhibit dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that prefrontal cortex impairment might be a critical risk factor for the development of schizophrenia.Item MU Translational Neuroscience Center: Progressing from Molecules to Behavior(2010) Miller, Dennis K. (Dennis Keith); Simonyi, Agnes; University of Missouri (System); Missouri Life Sciences Summit (2010: University of Missouri--Kansas City)An important component of modern neuroscience research is the ability to measure systematically and objectively different aspects of behavior. Behavioral analysis is crucial to a strong neuroscience research program because it evaluates the impact of molecular or neurochemical changes on the functioning of the entire organism. Behavioral research can be used to validate the role of a neuroscientist's specific molecular target (e.g., receptor, gene, or enzyme) in a particular behavior (e.g., emotions, learning and memory, or locomotor activity) and subsequently create whole systems that a neuroscientist can use to study a particular pathological state (e.g., depression, drug addiction or obesity). A unique strength of the MU Translational Neuroscience Center is the presence of some “bench” scientists working at the molecular level in pathology, biochemistry and genetics in collaboration with neurobehavioral experts. The Center's modern facilities and trained personnel are available to the MU neuroscience community to help design, conduct and evaluate behavioral research. This will help translate research from the molecular laboratory to the human clinic. This poster will show a summary of the different aspects and tasks we plan to perform at the MU Neurobehavioral Core Facility.Item Why Humans Do What They Do: Interdisciplinary Research on Realistic Decision Making(2010) O'Brien, Michael J. (Michael John), 1950-; Melnyk, Andrew, 1962-; Bettencourt, Ann; Mandy, David M.; University of Missouri (System); Missouri Life Sciences Summit (2010: University of Missouri--Kansas City)MU has enormous potential to be the site of path-breaking interdisciplinary research on the topic of realistic decision making. Not only is this research a basic component of human life science, it also has clear application to the marketing of life-science-related industries and products. The standard approach to modeling decision making incorporates a variety of simplifying assumptions. Agents are often assumed to be fully rational and to have narrowly defined personal goals, complete knowledge about the relevant options, and the ability to perform complex optimization calculations. Although these assumptions are frequently relaxed, standard psychological and economic analyses derive power from the ability of simplified models to represent complex behaviors. Despite the benefits of assuming a simplified rational decision-making process, there is growing recognition that alternative models, which replace the assumption of simple rationality with alternative assumptions, may aid in understanding decision making. As we better understand how humans make decisions in the real world, significant changes will be felt across economics, business, politics, and ethics. Economists have long understood that groups of individuals will not always coordinate on efficient outcomes merely by following self interest. But recently they have focused attention on the basic decision-making process, reflecting an increasingly mainstream acceptance of models in which simple rational decisions are no longer assumed. This is attested to by the number of popular trade books and new celebrity intellectuals who have attracted unprecedented attention to this kind of research; for example, Malcolm Gladwell's popular trade book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking (2005), focuses on how humans make immediate judgments through unconscious mechanisms that operate independently of rational decision making. A better understanding of the nonrational factors that influence decision making will have specific, transformational consequences for large areas of our economic and political lives. Even though such research is still in its infancy, there are already several private consulting firms that work with Fortune-100 companies for the purpose of informing their marketing and sales strategies through the use of neurological studies. In the political arena, the same companies are now marketing their services to political parties for the purpose of influencing voters' reactions to candidates and platforms. As this research proceeds, we can easily envision a future in which a focus on the nonrational elements of decision making becomes even more dominant among those who move public opinion. MU is in a unique position to carry out the kind of interdisciplinary research—based on a framework that goes beyond the traditional assumptions still largely dominant in rational-choice models—that is at the center of recent developments in the study of decision-making; indeed, we have an exceptional opportunity to become an important center for such research. The reason for this is the broad and deep research overlap among faculty in economics, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology, together with MU's new, state-of-the-art Brain Imaging Center. A survey of faculty research interests in the four disciplines shows that there are obvious strengths in the study of decision making that cannot be duplicated elsewhere.