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Lisa Zadro
University of Sydney, Australia http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/staff/lisaz/ What does your research focus on? My research focuses on ostracism, the act of being excluded and ignored. I literally get to ignore people for a living. What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you? I come from a long line of ostracism-wielding, Italian women. No-one (and I say this with love) can ostracize quite like an Italian woman. It’s in our blood. Up until my early twenties, I thought that it was completely normal to sever all connections to someone (and their loved ones…and their pets), possibly for the next decade or so if they had crossed you in some way.
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A Simple Weight Loss Strategy. Really. Maybe.
Dieting and weight control are really pretty simple. We gain weight, and have trouble losing it, because we eat too much and move too little. If we can switch that around, most of us should be able to maintain a sensible weight without resorting to unhealthy gimmicks. But that’s just the biology of weight control. What about the psychology? Why do we habitually take in too many calories, even when we know those calories are a ticket to obesity and all sorts of chronic diseases? There are two major reasons for unhealthy weight, according to experts. One is a simple lack of self-control. We live in a society where every day we confront an abundance of high-calories foods.
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Lindsay Malloy
Florida International University, USA http://dcc.fiu.edu What does your research focus on? My research focuses on such questions as, what do children say about the past and why? What factors influence when(or if) and how children disclose abuse? What’s the best way to question children about their eyewitness memories? How can knowledge of children’s cognitive and social development facilitate their participation in the legal system — a system designed for adults but that sees millions of children each year? What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you?
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Steve Balsis
Texas A&M University http://psychology.tamu.edu/Fac_Ext.php?ID=217 What does your research focus on? My research focuses on improving the assessment of clinical disorders (personality disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety, etc.) in older adults. This topic is timely because many of these disorders are not measured well in older adults. Further, these disorders play important roles in health outcomes, affecting not only older adults but also their families and the health care system.
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Gary Lupyan
University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/ What does your research focus on? I am interested in the cognitive functions of language. Apart from being used to communicate our ideas, how does speaking a language shape those ideas in the first place? What sorts of concepts might be “unthinkable” if we didn’t have the capacity for language? How are traits such as memory, categorization, and visual perception — traits that we share with other animals, shaped by our capacity for language — a trait largely unique to our species? What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you?
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Tal Yarkoni
University of Colorado at Boulder http://talyarkoni.org What does your research focus on? Most of my current research focuses on what you might call psychoinformatics: the application of information technology to psychology, with the aim of advancing our ability to study the human mind and brain. I’m interested in developing new ways to acquire, synthesize, and share data in psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
