August 2010

University of Southern California Department of Psychology Vol 5.6

Welcome! Jesse Graham, PhD

I am a new Assistant Professor in the implicit measures (reaction time
social area. I’m very excited to be tasks, EEG, and other methods that
joining USC’s psychology depart- bypass self-report) to investigate
ment! I received my PhD from the how “deep” these differences in
University of Virginia way back in moral concerns are. This work on
August 2010. Before my time in Vir- automatic, gut-level moral reac-
ginia I lived in Portland, OR; Kago- tions will also hopefully shed light
shima, Japan; Cambridge, MA; Chi- on some of the mechanisms and
cago, IL; and Kansas City, MO, processes behind moral judgments
where I grew up. and disagreements. Besides broad-
ening the range of methods used to
My research interests broadly cover gauge moral, religious and ideo-
morality, ideology, and religiosity. logical commitments, I will also be
Much of my work has been focused working to broaden the sample of
on the different kinds of moral con- Jesse Graham , PhD
individuals under study, to learn
cerns people have, and how those concerns Social Psychology more about how cultural and socio-ecological
vary across individuals, cultures, and con- contexts influence what we care about most
texts. The motivating question for this line of research was: how passionately, and how we represent that caring to others.
can “morality” mean such different things to different people? I (One way we’re doing this is through the internet, at sites like
have also investigated how political ideology influences deci- YourMorals.org, created by USC’s own Ravi Iyer.)
sion-making processes used in moral dilemmas (e.g., are some
actions always wrong regardless of the consequences, or does
the wrongness depend on the circumstances and outcomes of the My office is SGM804 – please feel free to stop by. I look for-
action?). ward to meeting everyone in person. My wife Sarah and I are
expecting our first child in November, so parenting advice is
In the next few years I will be expanding this research in several welcome!
directions. First, I am making use of recent developments in

REMEMBER ! EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING IS

Newsletter at a glance COFFEE AND PASTRY IN ROOM SGM 501
 Welcome Dr. Jesse Graham
9:00 AM—11:00 AM

 Wednesday Coffee SPECIAL GUESTS AT 9:30 AM—10:00 AM

BRING QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS!
 Did you know?

 Have you read anything good 9/1/2010—WELCOME BACK BREAKFAST !!

lately?
9/8/2010 - JESSE GRAHAM, PHD
 Spring & Summer 2010

 Announcements 9/15/2010—SHARON NIV (ADVISOR, CAROL PRESCOTT, PHD)

9/22/2010—RICHARD DAVIDSON, PHD

Volume 5 , Issue 3 Inside/Outside Page 2

 Daniel Paris ( honors student, advisor, Dr.JoAnn Farver) was honored in May by having his name placed on the USC
Wall of Scholars. The Wall of Scholars was developed in 1994 by the Skull and Dagger Society to honor students who
have won national and international fellowships, as well as recipients of USC awards. Daniel also works in Dr. Karen
Hennigan’s Center for Crime and Social Control.

 Jiye Kim (advisor, Dr. Irving Biederman ) was awarded a National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer
Institute Fellowship to do Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Research in the lab of Dr. Chi-Hung Juan at the National
Central University in Taiwan

 Taona Chithambo ( advisor, Stanley Huey), Charisse Corsbie-Massay (advisor, Stephen Read), and Elizabeth
Chereji (advisor, Carol Prescott) received EDGE travel grants to attend summer programs.

 Vanessa (advisor, Dr. Antoino Damasio) was selected to attend the FENS-IBRO summer school on “Cognition and ac-
tion: systems neuroscience approaches to understanding complex behavior” held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Vanessa’s
poster titled “Activation and interconnectivity of the hippocampus during the feeling of admiration and compassion” was
awarded best presentation.

 Ravi Iyer (advisor, Dr. Stephen Read) presented a talk "Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Roots
of an Individualist Ideology" at the conference of the International Society for Political Psychology in San Francisco.

 Keiko Kurita (advisor, Dr. Beth Meyerowitz) spoke on “Cancer Predicts Long-Term Cognitive Impairment in Older-
Adult Twins” at the American Psychological Association in San Diego.

 Jennifer Kellough (advisor, Dr. Bob Knight ) was awarded exemplary student for her work titled “Aging and judgment
of facial emotion” by APA Division 12, Section II.

 Lina D’Orazio (advisor, Dr. Beth Meyerowitz) has received an APA Minority Fellowship. New MFP fellows were rec-
ognized at the APA convention in San Diego.

 Dr. Gerald Davison received the 2010 Evelyn Hooker Award for Distinguished Contribution by an Ally, given by APA,
Division 44.

 Gerald Sun (undergraduate advisor, Dr. Bosco Tjan) is the first author of an article published in a leading journal in
vision research. Gerry used a mathematical model and a signal-in- noise paradigm to identify the mechanism through
which practice improves peripheral vision. Gerry is now a graduate student in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins.

 Anirvan Nandy, PhD (advisor, Dr. Bosco Tjan) successfully defended his dissertation and is now a postdoc at the Salk
Institute in San Diego.

 Rachel Millin (RA with, Dr. Bosco Tjan) won the Elseiver/Vision Research Travel award for her talk titled “ Reduced
Neural Activity with crowding is independent of attention and task difficulty” at the annual meeting of Vision Sciences
Society.

 Jessica Brommelhoff, PhD (advisor, Dr. Margaret Gatz) recently defended her dissertation and will be starting her post-
doc at UCLA Semel Institute

 Cecilia Poon, PhD (advisor, Dr. Bob Knight) recently defended her dissertation and will be beginning her clinical in-
ternship at Piedmont Hospital

 The Psychology Department has a new TEST SCORING MACHINE. Please see Sandy for details.
 Volume 5 , Issue 3 Inside/Outside Page 3

 Hua, Tianmiao, Bao, Pinglei, Huang, Chang-Bing, Wang, Zhenhua, Xu, Jinwang, Zhou, Yifeng, & Lu, Zhong-Lin.
(2010). Perceptual learning improves contrast sensitivity of V1 neurons in cats. Current Biology, 20, 887-894,
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.066

See commentary on this article:

 Saski, Y., Gold, J., & Watanabe, T. (2010). Perceptual learning: cortical changes when cats learn new tricks.
Current Biology, 20 (13) doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.05.004

 Lu, Z., Li, X., Tjan, B. S., Dosher, B. A., & Chu, W. (2010). Attention extracts signal in external noise: A BOLD fMRI
study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. doi:10.1162/jocn.2010.21511

 Reynolds, C., Hong, M.-G., Eriksson, U.K., Blennow, K., Johansson, B., Malmberg, B., Berg, S., Gatz, M., Pedersen,
N.L., Bennet, A.M., & Prince, J.A. (2010). Sequence variation in SORL1 and dementia risk in Swedes. Neurogenetics,
11, 139-142

 Sun, G.J., Chung, S. T. L., & Tjan, B. S. (2010). Ideal observer analysis of crowding and the reduction of crowding
through learning. Journal of Vision, 10(5):16, 1-14. http/journalofvision.org/content10/5/15, doi:10.1167/10.5.16

 Hitsman, B., Shen, B. J., Cohen, R. A., Morissette, S. B., Drobes, D. J., Spring, B., Schneider, K., Evans, D. E., Gulliver,
S. B., Kamholz, B. W., Price, L. H., Niaura, R. (2010). Measuring Smoking-Related Preoccupation and Compulsive
Drive: Evaluation of the Obsessive Compulsive Smoking Scale. Psychopharmacology, 211(4), 377-387.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d22n05n751133p17/

 Phan, A., IsHak, W. W., Shen, B. J., Fuess, J., Philip, K., Bresee, C., Czer, L., Schwarz, E. R. (2010). Persistent sexual
dysfunction impairs quality of life after cardiac transplantation. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7, 2765-2773.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01854.x/abstract;jsessionid=29D205DE895B08E35997FAB7DC0AE9A0.d03t01

 Gao, Y., Raine, A., Venables, P. H., Dawson, M. E., Mednick, S. A. (2010). Association of poor childhood fear condi-
tioning and adult crime. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 56-60.

 Margolin G, Vickerman KA, Oliver PH, Gordis EB. (2010) Violence exposure in multiple interpersonal domains: Cumu-
lative and differential effects. Journal of Adolescent Health, 47, 198-205.

 Gordis EB, Margolin G, Spies LA, Susman EJ & Granger, DA. (2010). Interparental aggression and parent-adolescent
salivary alpha amylase symmetry. Physiology & Behavior, 100, 225-233.

NEURODEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Announcements
INTEREST GROUP
A newly formed neurodevelopmental psychology interest group will have its inaugural meeting September 29th, 2010 at 3:30
pm in SGM 901 on the USC University Park Campus. This interdisciplinary group will bring together researchers and clini-
cians across USC, from the Departments of Psychology, Neurobiology, Viterbi School of Engineering, Brain and Creativity
Institute, Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center, Institute for Creative Technology, Zilkha Neurogenetics Institute and the
Keck School of Medicine. This interest group will meet one Wednesday each month in an informal setting to discuss recent
publications relevant to neurodevelopmental psychology, and will meet at multiple sites (UPC and HSC) to accommodate its
participants. These meetings are open to USC faculty, trainees, and staff interested in neurodevelopmental psychology re-
search. Possible areas of interest include, but are not limited to, cognitive and social-emotional functions, recent advances in
neuroimaging (structural and functional), neurodevelopmental disorders, application of novel engineering strategies for re-
search use, innovative behavior probes in young children, stress-reactivity and arousal, neurodevelopmental sensitive windows,
early learning, animal models, sensory and motor developmental trajectories, and the contribution of genetics to behavioral
variability.

If you are interested in being included in future mailings about this group, or if you’d like more information, please e-mail
Barbara Thompson at Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute blthomps@usc.edu or
Darby Saxbe in the Department of Psychology dsaxbe@usc.edu.

Full articles are posted outside SGM 538. Please send your newest / best publications to Twyla Ponton, ponton@usc.edu
 Volume 5 , Issue 3 Inside/Outside Page 4

~Spring and Summer 2010 and WELCOME BACK~

Daniel Paris ( Honors Student, Advisor, Dr. JoAnn

Farver) with President Sample at the Wall of Scholars
Ceremony
Vanessa ( advisor, Dr. Antonio Damasio) in Croatia at the
FENS-IBRO summer school with her award winning poster.

Sharon Niv (advisor, Carol Prescott)

at Singularity University in Silicon
Valley

Sharon Niv at Singularity University

Q&A

Sharon Niv operating a robot onto a colorful object

Psychology Department
Welcome Back Breakfast!!
~~~Join us to welcome new students and faculty ~~~
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
9:30 am — 10:00 am
SGM 514
Volume 5 , Issue 3 Inside/Outside Page 5

Announcements & Colloquia

!
DAR
N
CA LE Upcoming Colloquia
UR
YO
K
M
AR
Richard Davidson, PhD
“Order and Disorder in the Emotional Brain”
Wednesday, September 22
HNB 100
12—1:00 pm

Nathan Fox, PhD

Wednesday, October 20
HNB 100
12—1:00 pm

Elizabeth Loftus, PhD

Wednesday, December 1
HNB 100
12 –1:00 pm

GASP NEWS!
New Student Orientation - August 25th

If you are interested in being involved in GASP events

you are encouraged to show up and join in the fun!

Have an idea for GASP programming? Email Rachel-

rachel.beattie@gmail.com

Editor: Sandy Medearis

medearis@college.usc.edu