Category Archives: Research

Funding Opportunity for Grad Students! Basic Psychological Science Research Grant

Are you conducting psychological science research and need additional funding for your study?  The APAGS Basic Psychological Science Research Grant provides financial support for direct costs associated with psychological science research studies conducted by graduate students.

Graduate students in the following science-oriented fields are encouraged to apply:

  • Cognitive,
  • Cognitive Neuroscience,
  • Computational, Developmental,
  • Experimental or Comparative,
  • Industrial/Organizational,
  • Neuropsychology,
  • Neuroscience,
  • Perception and Psychophysics,
  • Personality and Individual Differences,
  • Psycholinguistics,
  • Physiological,
  • Quantitative,
  • Social, and
  • Clinical Science

Students in fields with a practice component are eligible, but they must focus solely on their scientific research in their application materials.

In addition, there is new funding for the grant specifically designated for those conducting diversity-related research.  APAGS is offering up to 3 awards for $1,000 to fund diversity-related research project if you apply for a Basic Psychological Science Grant.  APAGS defines diversity according to APA’s Multicultural Guidelines (2002): Diversity “refer[s] to individuals’ social identities including age, sexual orientation, [gender and gender identity], physical disability, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, workplace role/position, religious and spiritual orientation, and work/family concerns.”

Eligibility caveats:

  • Undergraduates are not eligible to apply for these grants/awards, nor are current or former APAGS Committee members, subcommittee chairs and task force chairs.
  • Former APAGS subcommittee members or ad hoc reviewers who have previously reviewed this grant are not eligible.
  • Previous recipients of each grant/award are not eligible to apply again for a period of five years.

Read more and apply online by December 3!  For specific questions, contact APAGS or Alexa Lopez!

Research Spotlight: Where are they now?

In order to acknowledge all of the great psychology research APAGS members have conducted recently, we asked our funding recipients to share with us all of the important progress they have been able to accomplish with the support of the of APAGS and the APA Science Student Council (SSC).  

In the upcoming months we will be showcasing outstanding students whose research was made possible with the help of APA and SSC funding. The following students have demonstrated the utmost passion and creativity that APA looks for in its members and we love to see how their personal interests are inspiring the entire psychological science community.

 

spikeleeSpike Lee: Mind over Matter

“My colleagues and I have been exploring a number of quirky effects linking the mind and the body. What we consistently find is that social psychological processes are influenced by incidental bodily experiences that have no more than metaphorical relevance. For example,

  • Literally smelling something fishy makes people suspicious and invest less money in a trust game
  • After doing something unethical with their mouth, people want to rinse their “dirty mouth”; but after doing something unethical with their hands, people want to purify their “dirty hands”
  • People can metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” — an antiseptic wipe is sufficient to eliminate the classic free-choice dissonance effect

In addition, a few years back when swine flu was all over the place, we did a couple of fun studies by walking around town, sneezing and coughing. That was enough to change how people wanted the government to spend a billion dollars. The logic wasn’t new but the effects were surprisingly strong, given that it was “just a sneeze.””

 

Logan Fiorella: Learning by Teaching: The Role of Expectations and ExplanationsLogan Fiorella Bio Pic

It is often said that the best way to learn something new is to teach it to someone else.  My research aimed to explore this idea by testing the relative effects of preparing to teach and actually teaching on short- and long-term learning.

  •  In four experiments, college students studied a multimedia lesson on how a scientific process works with the expectation of later teaching or being tested on the material; some participants actually taught the material, whereas others only studied the lesson.
  •  Participants then completed a comprehension test either immediately or following a one-week delay… when tested following a one-week delay, only participants who actually taught the material experienced better learning outcomes.

These findings suggest that while preparing to teach leads to short-term learning benefits, the act of teaching is critical for long-term learning.

 

Michael Alosco: Where the Heart Is

mike alonso photoEarly research of mine has examined the impact of cognitive function on activities of daily living in older adults with heart failure. Support from APAGS has provided the opportunity to expand upon this line of research to help better understand the association between cognitive function and functional independence in cardiovascular disease patients.

  • For instance, recent work from our team suggest that heart failure patients may be at risk for unsafe driving and treatment non-adherence due to impairments in attention and executive function.
  •  In response to these findings, additional studies from our group have sought to identify possible mechanisms for cognitive impairment in persons with cardiovascular disease using advanced neuroimaging.