Ed Wasserman generates international press

Professor of Experimental psychology Ed Wasserman recently participated in a high profile symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Chicago. Reports of this symposium have been very widely disseminated in the media thanks to two separate press releases:

Science Daily Article
Baboons And Pigeons Are Capable Of Higher-level Cognition

Chicago Tribune Article
Researchers Say Animals Plan for the Future

The story can also be found on the CLAS web site.

UI Graduate College alumna wins nation’s top dissertation award

From the University of Iowa News Services Office
University of Iowa alumna Jessica Horst has won the nation’s most prestigious honor for doctoral dissertations, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS)/UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award.

Horst, who earned her doctorate in psychology in 2007, won the award for her dissertation "Turning Novel Names into Known Names," a study of how children learn language.

Horst’s research proposes a theory on how to combine existing knowledge on how humans quickly identify words ("fast map-ping") with knowledge about how we learn. Using lab experiments and computer modeling, she discovered that, contrary to con-ventional wisdom, the ability to fast map does not mean a toddler has actually learned a new word; full-word learning is a gradual process.

Selected above all other social science dissertations completed nationally for a two-year period (July 1, 2006-June 30, 2008), Horst’s study of pediatric language acquisition was honored at a ceremony during the CGS 48th annual meeting in December. She received a certificate, a $2,000 honorarium and travel expenses to attend the award ceremony.

Horst’s dissertation was directed by UI psychology professor Larissa Samuelson, with Bob McMurray, Gregg Oden, John Spencer, Karla McGregor, and Prahlad Gupta, all faculty in the UI’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, on the dissertation committee.

Susan Wagner Cook joins faculty in 2008

Susan received her Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Chicago, following which she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester. Her research explores learning and communication.  In particular, she uses speech and gesture as a window onto processes supporting knowledge representation and knowledge change.

Julie Gros-Louis

Julie Gros-Louis received her Ph.D. In 2001 from the University of Pennsylvania. She then went on to Indiana University where she was a postdoctoral fellow and research associate. Her research interests include the development and function of vocalizations in prelinguistic infants, songbirds, and nonhuman primates. Studies across these species have examined the facilitative effects of vocalizations in social interactions and the role of contingent feedback on shaping communicative behaviors. Current studies focus on prelinguistic infants, specifically, the relationship between responsiveness in parent-infant social interactions and the development of prelinguistic communicative skills.

Stuit Professorships renewed

University of Iowa psychology professors Grazyna Kochanska and Edward Wasserman have recently had their Stuit Professorships renewed. These Professorships are designed to recognize distinguished Psychology Department faculty. The professorships were established in 1997 by Dewey and Velma Stuit. They are awarded for five-year terms and are renewable.

Kochanska is the Stuit Professor of Developmental Psychology and Wasserman is the Stuit Professor of Experimental Psychology.

In connection with these renewals, each individual is asked to present a departmental colloquium.

Wasserman's colloquium was held on October 19, 2007. It was entitled, "Humans, animals, and computers: Minding machines?" It takes a broad look at cognitive science and neuroscience and is available for viewing here. (windows media player required)

Eating disorders represent a significant source of distress, impairment, and medical risk among women. Although anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa receive the greatest attention in popular media and research literature, most individuals who have clinically significant disorders of eating do not meet criteria for anorexia or bulimia. To address the gap between the conditions that people have and what we know about them, recent research from Dr. Pamela Keel's laboratory is characterizing a newly defined eating disorder that Keel has termed "purging disorder."

Individuals with purging disorder have a normal weight and purge after eating normal or even small amounts of food. A study published in September's issue of Archives of General Psychiatry supports the clinical significance of purging disorder and its distinctiveness from bulimia nervosa on subjective and physiological responses to food intake.

Press coverage of this research can be found by following the link below:

CBS News