Current Research Activities

My current research interests are focused on the study of basic principles in learning and motivation with emphasis on conditioning and extinction of human and animal fears, development of an animal model of alcoholism based on stress and relaxation, and the physiological motivational variables involved in anxiety and other maladaptive behaviors.

Recent ConferencePresentations

             Callen, E., Kuenzi, M., Rowland, J., & Boyd, T. (April, 2005).  Stimulus duration effects in the reinstatement of extinguished fear.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Nashville, TN.

             Boyd, T., Hartseil, J., & Callen, E. (April, 2005).  The effects of depressed mood and symptom severity upon attentional bias in PMS.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Nashville, TN.

             Callen, E.,  Boyd, T., & Avellone, L. (March, 2006).  Context fear and stimulus duration in the reinstatement of fear.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA.

             Kuenzi, M., Boyd, T., & Callen, E. (March, 2006).  The generalization of fear extinction and enhancement in multiple phobics.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA.

             Beaumont, J., Boyd, T., & Callen, E.  (March, 2006).  Fear activation during exposure in high versus low ego-strength subjects.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA.

             Callen, E.,  Avellone, L,  Boyd, T., & Duckett, K.  (February, 2007).  Extinction of context fear depends on conditioned stimulus exposure duration.   Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.

             Beaumont, J., Boyd, T., Avellone, L., & Callen, E.  (February, 2007).  Fear activation during exposure in repressive and highly anxious subjects.   Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.

.  Callen, E., Avellone, L., Vinci, C., & Boyd, T.  (March, 2008).  Duration and placement of CS trials affects context extinction.   Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Charlotte, NC

 Duckett, K., & Callen, E.  (March, 2008).  Stimulus generalization and context effects in the reinstatementof fear  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Charlotte, NC

 Avellone, L., Boyd, T., & Callen, E.  (March, 2008).  Reinforcement sensitivity and gambling:  Effects of winning versus losing.   Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Charlotte, NC

 Vinci, C., & Callen, E. (February, 2009).  Duration in extinction: Fear measurement with different tasks.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.

Callen, E., Vinci, C., & Lange, K. (February, 2009).  Reinstatement to a compound CS with a single stimulus.  Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.

Recent Publications

Callen, E. J. (2004).  Context preexposure influences the effectiveness of feedback stimuli in avoidance learning.  Behavioural Processes, 66. 35-42.        Link to PDF file