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Selective Attention and Symmetry
Perception How
do we perceive the color symmetry present in a tiger's face or butterfly's
wings? We appear to selectively attend to one color at a time and
inspect the shape formed by each color individually. Response times for
symmetric figures are significantly longer than for asymmetric figures,
suggesting that once an asymmetry is detected we stop checking for
symmetry. |
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I
sometimes serve as a statistical consultant on projects related to health
disparities: |
Depression and
Race in Children One of several projects related to health disparities (currently in
revision in preparation for resubmission) examines the depressive symptoms of
children born to adolescent mothers. Since data were collected at 3 time
points I could use a multi-level model instead of the more typical
repeated-measures ANOVA. This decision allows better control for practice
effects and clearer insight into depression symptoms in childhood as a
function of sex and race. We show that depression symptoms from ages 8 to 14
rose, had very different trajectories for African American boys vs. European
American boys vs. African American girls vs. European American girls, and
were statistically moderated by race and sex. This is important because we can argue that some children have
protective cultural factors which insulate them against depression, and we
can show that some parenting practices are consistently associated with
depressive symptoms between racial groups.
Since parenting practices are not always associated with similar
outcomes across racial
and cultural groups, this was another important finding.
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I enjoy
serving as statistical consultant on projects related to health disparities: |
Correlates
of African American Men’s Sexual Schemas I served as quantitative analyst for a project
currently in peer review which shows that education moderates the
relationship between masculine ideology, culture, and sexual schemas. The
statistical challenges were substantial, since the measures used were valid
and reliable for white men and proved to be problematic for assessing African
American men, requiring extensive data screening to ensure acceptable
reliability. |
There were so many pictures I could have posted related to African
American male sexual schemas, stereotypes, and masculine ideology, and I just
could not choose. Why don’t you write
to me and make a suggestion? |
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Pain, Race, and
Attention |
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In this
study, African American and European
American young adults were either placed in pain (cold pressor task) or not
(tepid water). Their attention and executive
function was assessed before the water task, and their ability to control
their attention was assessed immediately after the water task and 15 minutes
later. This project
was a thesis by a master’s student (Amy Morford). Managing pain requires attention,
and we know that African Americans respond to painful tasks differently than
European Americans. Sure enough,
there are substantial racial differences before and after pain, and building
the models for this data is ongoing.
You will see this data at the Association
for Psychological Science Convention. |
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As people age they tend to perseverate more often,
although younger people do it too. For example, when an older
person begins to tell you a story they have told you many times before, and
even they seem to know that they have told you it before, they just cannot
stop themselves from telling it to you again. When a younger person is looking for their
keys and they keep returning to specific locations and looking for them there
again and again, even though they know they have looked there already- that
is another example of perseveration. I have been investigating the tendency to perseverate,
which is considered a major impediment to flexible thinking, in both younger
and older people of a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. I measure
health related variables such a body mass index, sociocultural variables such
as parental education and socioeconomic status, and cognitive variables such
as verbal intelligence, and studying attentional factors which influence the
tendency to perseverate. One section
of this project was presented at the Cognitive
Aging Conference and is currently being read by co-authors and the other
part needs more data (this fall!).
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I concluded a confidential research
contract by authoring an extensive
report analyzing safety climate and social tension for a company with a high hazard workplace. I interviewed or surveyed 1,061 employees
(on the telephone and by using an
online survey) built statistical
models of safety climate, interpreted them for technical professionals
(engineers, safety managers) and management, formulated well-received recommendations
for improving safety, and delivered the project on-time. My recommendations focused on practical
ways of reducing social tensions in the workplace and improving comunication;
they were well-received. Focused
attention is required to follow complex safety procedures and I was able to
convince company leaders that reducing social stress and microaggressions would improve
compliance. I hope to gain permission
to publish this data set. |
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Another
consulting job, this time for a private company under a private research
contract. |
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