News & Events

Department News & Notes

 

Dr. Paula Desmond signed a contract in February 2008 with Ashgate Publishing Limited to publish an edited text entitled "The Handbook of Operator Fatigue." She will  serve as the lead editor for the text. The edited volume will feature the work of 30 eminent researchers in the area of fatigue.

Desmond, P.A., & Matthews, G. (2008) Individual differences in stress and fatigue in two field studies of driving. Submitted to Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior. Accepted for publication in June 2008.

Matthews, G., & Desmond, P.A. (in press). Driving simulation in stress and fatigue research. In Handbook of Driving Simulation for Engineering, Medicine and Psychology. D.L. Fisher., M. Rizzo., J. Caird., & J.D. Lee (Eds.) Taylor & Francis CRC Press.

Dr. Desmond was awarded a 2008 Cullen Faculty Development Award for the amount of $2,600 to support her scholarly work on fatigue.

 

Dr. Jesse Purdy, professor of psychology, and former student Ludi Rouseau Russell will  present a poster describing the findings of their work with Weddell seals at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society Aug. 16-20 in Snowbird, Utah. The poster describes a unique methodology that allowed them to observe the underwater courtship behavior of Weddell seals as they interact under the fast-ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The poster is co-authored with Randall Davis, a professor of marine biology at Texas A&M University in Galveston.  The film produced by Jesse Purdy and Randall Davis to introduce the 2008 Brown Symposium was selected as a semi-finalist at the annual film festival sponsored by the Animal Behavior Society. "The World of Weddell Seals" will be viewed by the film competition committee and attendees of the ABS meeting on Saturday, Aug. 16, and again on Monday, Aug. 18. The winner of the Jack B. Ward Film Competition for non-commercial entries will be announced at an awards banquet on Wednesday, Aug. 20.  Biology student Delia Shelton is presenting a poster at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society Aug. 16-20 in Snowbird, Utah. The work was done in Professor Jesse Purdy's lab over the past 18 months and describes three experiments that test whether learning could be involved in the development of generalized strategies of defense in mummichogs, a common baitfish inhabiting the shallow coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The poster was one of nine accepted for the ABS sponsored Genesis Poster Competition for Undergraduates. Shelton will be flying in for the meeting from Costa Rica, where she is doing research at a field station.

 

Dr. Jesse Purdy writes:

Delia Shelton (who is currently in a field station in Costa Rica and will be flying in for the meeting and then back out to the rain forest) and her undergrad SU co-workers are presenting a poster at the forth-coming annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society (August 16-20; Snowbird, Utah). The work was done in my lab over the past 18 months and describes three experiments that test whether learning could be involved in the development of generalized strategies of defense in mummichogs, a common baitfish inhabiting the shallow coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic and golf of Mexico. The poster was one of nine posters accepted for the ABS sponsored Genesis Poster Competition for Undergraduates.

In addition, I, along with Ludi Rouseau Russell, a former student, and Randy Davis will be presenting a poster describing the findings of our work with Weddell seals. In essence we describe a unique methodology that allowed us to observe the underwater courtship behavior of Weddell seals as they interact under the fast-ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The method also involved the use of a sophisticated pattern recognition software package produced by Noldus, Inc. This software provided us an opportunity for the first time to determine causal links between the vocalizations of Weddell seals and other vocal or non-vocal behaviors.

Finally, the film that Randy Davis and I produced and that was used to introduce the topic of Brown Symposium XXX was selected as a semi-finalist at the annual film festival sponsored by the Animal Behavior Society. "The World of Weddell Seals" will be viewed by the film competition committee and attendees of the ABS meeting on Saturday, August 16 and again on Monday, August 18. The winner of the Jack B. Ward film competition for non-commercial entries will be announced at the awards banquet on Wednesday, August 20.

References from the ABS program:

2008 ABS FILM FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 16, 8:00-9:30 pm, Ballroom 1 (all movies)
Monday, August 18, 7:30 -9:00 pm, Ballroom 1 (all movies)

Jack Ward Competition (Non-Commercial Films)

The World of Weddell Seals    23 min.  running times: Sat 9:04-9:27; Mon 8:34-8:57
Produced by Jesse E. Purdy and Randall W. Davis

This film describes the unusual self world or "unwelt" of the Weddell seal.  Using cameras mounted on the seals, the film documents how the seals use environmental cues and sensory information to gain access to air, food, and mates under the extraordinarily harsh conditions in Antarctica. For more information: Jesse E. Purdy, Dept. of Psychology, Southwestern University, 1001 E. University Avenue, Georgetown, TX 78626

GENESIS (Undergraduate) & TURNER (High school) COMPETITIONS

G 3 Under the bottom and over the top: Multiple selection pressures of teleost fish. Shelton DS, Lee KH, McDonald J, Mingle M, Winland C, Purdy J Southwestern University

MATING/BREEDING SYSTEMS

52 Weddell seal courtship: Relationships between vocalizations and behaviors. Purdy JE, Russell L, Davis R Southwestern University and Texas A & M University at Galveston.

 

April 13, 2007
Psychology Department students and faculty made another impressive showing at the Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA) annual meeting in Fort Worth April 5-7, 2007. Presentations included “Latent Growth Modeling” by Richard Osbaldiston; “Group attachment and eating disorder problem dimensions among college females” by Jessica Vandivier, Jessica Harper, Diana De Luna and Bryan Neighbors; “Weddell Seal Mating Strategies: Vocalizations, Behaviors and Social Interactions” by Ludivine Russell and Jesse Purdy; “‘Her-she’ snacks: The relationship between gender and chocolate consumption” by Hailey Ormand, Patrick Egan and Traci Giuliano; “Gender and health-awareness: The relationship between gender and beverage choice” by Rachel Osborne, Braden Ackley and Traci Giuliano; “The Effect of mPOA Lesions on Paced Mating Behavior” by Amanda Covington, Matt Gilbertand Fay Guarraci; “Disruption of Olfactory Cues Affects Paced Mating Behavior, but not Mate Selection in the Female Rat” by Sarah McCracken, Milly Lee and Fay Guarraci; “Beyond the picket lines: Self-monitoring and political activism in college students” by Shelly Tang, Andrew Yusran and Traci Giuliano; and "Characterization of Human Milk Donors" by Richard Osbaldiston and Leigh A. Mingle. In addition, two submissions to the Psi Chi program earned $300 Best Submission awards. These were “ZZZs to As: The effects of limited sleep on executive functioning” by Leigh Mingle, Sally Redden, Shelly Tang and Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, and “Classroom crushes: An exploration of student-instructor attraction” by Emily Travis and Traci Giuliano.

 

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