Professor Emeritus Of Psychology Research Articles

Max Velmans Interview: On Understanding Consciousness, Reflexive Monism, and the Future of Consciousness Studies

Max Velmans, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, is one of the leading theorists of consciousness studies — an interdisciplinary field of study that deals with questions about the nature of consciousness and how it relates to the physical world. In this interview, we look back at his life and work; in particular, his idea of reflexive monism, which is one of his landmark contributions to the field.

Lewis Paeff Lipsitt (1929-2021).

Memorializes Lewis Paeff Lipsitt (1929-2021). In 1957, Lew joined the faculty at Brown University where he taught until retirement (1996) when he was named Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Medical Science and of Human Development. Committed to sharing his knowledge and skills in psychology, Lew held numerous leadership positions including three terms on the American Psychological Association (APA) Council of Representatives. His receipt of the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society memorialized Lew's contributions to children's well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite Addition to DSM, Few Treatments Emerge for Hoarding Disorder

Despite Addition to <i>DSM</i>, Few Treatments Emerge for Hoarding Disorder

Leslie Rescorla (1945-2020).

Memorializes Leslie Rescorla (1945-2020). Rescorla, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Class of 1897 Professor of Science Emeritus at Bryn Mawr College, passed away in Havertown, PA on October 12, 2020. Rescorla, who was born in Washington, DC on August 15, 1945, came to Bryn Mawr in 1985; where she taught in the Psychology Department and directed the College's Phebe Anna Thorne School and, until 2018, its Child study Institute. For many years she chaired the department and directed its Clinical Developmental Psychology doctoral program. She supervised over 70 undergraduate senior research projects, 26 MA theses, and 45 PhD dissertations, and in 2002 received the College's McPherson Prize for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service to the community. Leslie majored in Modern European History at Radcliffe College, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1967 and earned her MA in Economic History at the London School of Economics in 1968. She received a PhD in Child Development and Clinical Psychology from Yale in 1976 and completed her clinical training at Yale, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center. She remained a licensed clinical and school psychologist throughout her career and was long-time director of Bryn Mawr's School Psychologist Certification program. Leslie's research focused on late development of language in children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Irwin Pollack (1925-2021).

Memorializes Irwin Pollack (1925-2021). Pollack, one of the early pioneers in human performance and the information processing approach to cognition that emerged after WWII, died in Ann Arbor, MI on January 23, 2021. He was a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Michigan. During a career spanning more than 50 years, first as a civilian research scientist in the U.S. Air Force from 1949 to 1963, then as a Professor and Research Scientist at the Mental Health Research Institute at Michigan from 1963 until his retirement in 1995, Irwin was a creative and highly productive experimental/cognitive psychologist who worked on a wide range of challenging problems in sensory psychology, hearing, speech perception, cognition, decision-making, and human information processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Jerome Kagan: February 25, 1929–May 10, 2021

We note, with sadness, the passing of Dr Jerome Kagan, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Harvard University, and pioneering researcher in the field of developmental psychology.

Mark I. Appelbaum (1941-2020).

Memorializes Mark I. Appelbaum (1941-2020). Appelbaum was a giant in the field of quantitative psychology and developmental methodology. At the time of his passing, he was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. He was a distinguished researcher, teacher, and administrator who helped to transform research in psychology, education, and medicine by developing and applying methods for analyzing longitudinal data. He also was an award-winning teacher and mentor, an innovative administrator, and an individual with a passionate commitment to service-service to his colleagues, universities, and to the discipline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Robert A. Rescorla (1940-2020).

Memorializes Robert Arthur Rescorla (1940-2020), emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Rescorla was the world's most distinguished scholar in animal learning and a great teacher. Rescorla thought of himself as primarily an experimen talist, and his experiments on Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental learning would win any prize for the aesthetics of experimental design. Most of his nearly 200 empirical articles included multiple experiments with replications. Among Re scorla's most beautiful experiments were the studies of extinc tion performed in the last decade of his career. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

In memoriam: John F. Santos (1924–2020)

John F. Santos, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, was a pioneer in gerontology. Among his many contributions to the field and its development was his Gerontol...

’Relapse’ May Be Outmoded Term in AUD Recovery

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Clinical & ResearchFull Access’Relapse’ May Be Outmoded Term in AUD RecoveryNick ZagorskiNick ZagorskiSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:13 Aug 2019https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.8b26AbstractAt NIAAA’s 2019 Mendelson Lecture, Carlo DiClemente, Ph.D., discussed the role of relapse in helping people learn to change their behaviors and suggested the term might better be removed from the lexicon of addiction.“I think it’s time we retire the term ‘relapse,’ ” when thinking about the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD), said Carlo DiClemente, Ph.D., at the start of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Jack Mendelson, M.D., Honorary Lecture in July. Initiated in 2009, the Mendelson Lecture recognizes the contributions of the late psychiatrist Jack Mendelson in establishing alcohol use disorder as a medical condition and helping to pave the way for the formation of the NIAAA in 1970.NIAAA Director George Koob, Ph.D. (right), presents the 2019 Mendelson Lecture Award to Carlo DiClemente, Ph.D., for his groundbreaking work in characterizing the process of healthy behavioral change.NIAAADiClemente, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and co-developer of the transtheoretical model (TTM, the concept that people go through discrete “stages” when undergoing a behavioral change), then proceeded to make his case to the assembled audience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Md.Though the term relapse is used to describe the return of symptoms of other disorders such as depression, it is tightly associated with alcohol and drug use, DiClemente noted.“But what is a relapse?” he asked the audience. For many, relapse is seen as the opposite state of recovery, but DiClemente disagreed. “I think this belief is stigmatizing and contributes to a fatalistic worldview for those looking to quit,” he said.“I don’t see it as the opposite of recovery, but rather an event that may be necessary for recovery,” he continued.DiClemente came to this conclusion after working to adapt the TTM (which was initially conceived following observations of people trying to quit smoking) for alcohol use disorder. He looked at characterizing relapse as a stage alongside the established stages of behavioral change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.“But we found that people who reported a relapse looked very different,” he said. “Some went back to the precontemplation stage and kept drinking, but others cycled directly to contemplation or preparing to quit.” DiClemente also noted that people could relapse from any stage. This led him to consider relapse as part of the process toward behavioral change. At each step people need to complete certain tasks in order to fully embrace their change; if they are not ready to adequately complete those tasks, then they might cycle back to a previous step.“For problem drinkers, alcohol has become an important part of their lives,” he said. “Learning how to overcome these changes takes time, energy, and focus. There will be errors along the way, but if we focus on how patients can benefit from the experience of failure, and not the failure itself, it can change the perspective of research and clinical practice.”If the term “relapse” should be retired, what should take its place then? “Let’s call it a recycling,” DiClemente said. “A recycling on the road to recovery.” ■More information on the Jack Mendelson Honorary Lecture series is posted here. ISSUES NewArchived

A Conversation with Robert L. Wrenn

Robert L. Wrenn is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Arizona. During his tenure at the University of Arizona he directed the University-wide Honors Program and Student Counselin...

Joseph White (1932–2017).

Presents an obituary of Joseph White (1932-2017), often called "the godfather of Black psychology." During a distinguished 56-year career, White held many professional roles, perhaps none more profound than that of mentor. Additionally, White served as a (supervising) psychologist to five hospitals and three clinical practices. He served as chairman of the California State Psychology Licensing Board for 3 years. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of The Menninger Foundation in Houston, Texas, and held the title of professor emeritus of psychology and psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine, where he spent most of his career as a professor and director of ethnic studies and cross-cultural programs. White personified a socially engaged psychologist. He continually promoted the goals of multiculturalism and social justice through his practice and scholarship. The author or coauthor of numerous articles and books, he was a founder of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) and a pioneer in the field of Black psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-Reports of Poor Sleep Not Always Accurate

Self-Reports of Poor Sleep Not Always Accurate

Steven Reiss (1947–2016).

This article memorializes Steven Reiss (1947-2016), an eminent clinical psychologist. He was professor emeritus of psychology and psychiatry at the Ohio State University. Reiss has made major contributions to three areas of psychology. He formulated the concept of anxiety sensitivity, an individual difference variable signifying a person's proneness to respond fearfully to bodily sensations that accompany anxiety. He was the key developer of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), a self-report measure of the fear of anxiety sensations translated into more than 20 languages. Reiss was a pioneer in the field of dual diagnosis-the study and treatment of mental disorders in people with intellectual disabilities. Reiss's third major field of inquiry was human motivation. For the past 20 years, he has been studying individual differences in motivational profiles. To measure individual differences in 16 basic desires, he developed the Reiss Motivation Profile. (PsycINFO Database Record

George Albert Shouksmith: November 2, 1931–January 20, 2016

We note, with sadness, the passing of a notable New Zealand Emeritus Professor of Psychology, George Albert Shouksmith.

Sarnoff A. Mednick (1928–2015).

Presents the obituary of Sarnoff A. Mednick (1928 -2015). Sarnoff A. Mednick was considered among the most important figures in psychopathology research in his generation. He pioneered the high-risk research design and made numerous contributions to our understanding of creativity and of the origins of schizophrenia and criminality. The son of Jewish immigrants, Mednick was born on January 27, 1928, and was raised in the Bronx in New York City, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1948 and a master's degree from Columbia University. In 1954, he earned his doctorate in psychology from Northwestern University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, he was appointed an instructor at Harvard University and then became a visiting assistant research professor at the University of California, Berkeley (1958 -1959). In 1968, he became a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, where he taught until 1977, when he joined the faculty at the University of Southern California until his retirement in August 2008. Mednick, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Southern California, died of natural causes on April 10, 2015, in Toledo, Ohio. He was 87.

Assessing Change in Core Autism Symptoms: Challenges for Pharmacological Studies

[Author Affiliation]Michael G. Aman. The Nisonger Center UCEDD, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.L. Eugene Arnold. The Nisonger Center UCEDD, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.Jill A. Hollway. The Nisonger Center UCEDD, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.Address correspondence to: Michael G. Aman, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, The Nisonger Center (OCEDD) Ohio State University, 1581 Dodd Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43210, E-mail: Michael.Aman@osumc.eduThese days, there is considerable interest in attempts to treat certain developmental disabilities pharmacologically. In this discussion, we periodically step outside the fields of psychopharmacology or autism to see what lessons can be learned for the study of core autism features. If we explore Clinicaltrials.gov, we see approximately 20 studies underway or recently completed among patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Down syndrome, or Fragile X syndrome.Recently, we completed a small trial of mecamylamine in children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (Arnold et al., 2012). This trial was the occasion for reflections on the issue of how to measure change in the core symptoms of autism in the context of pharmacological intervention. The purpose of this editorial is to make some observations, pose questions, and offer some suggestions regarding the measurement of ASD core symptoms. We also comment on the clinical and research context in which such investigations must take place.Autism Spectrum Disorder as a Developmental Disability: Implications for PharmacotherapyASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder--i.e., it becomes evident in the course of development, usually within the first three years of life. As a developmental disability, we see three areas of profound social impairment involving failure to develop normally. First, there are profound deficits in social-emotional reciprocity (APA, 2013). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), gives the following examples of deficits in social and emotional reciprocity: Poor social approach, failure to engage in reciprocal conversations, reduced sharing of thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Second, there are deficits in nonverbal communication, including the ability to integrate gesture, eye contact, facial expressions, and body language when communicating with others. Third, there are deficits in the development and understanding of relationships, which may include a lack of interest in others and lack of joint interactive imaginative play (APA, 2013). Also included in the diagnostic criteria are behavioral excesses encompassing restricted, repetitive, or narrow patterns of behaviors and interests, including repetitive physical movements or speech, insistence on sameness or routines, narrow or fixated interests, and odd reactions (often increased or muted) to sensory aspects of the environment.The key issue here is that these developmental deficits suggest months and (usually) years of failure to develop and progress at normal rates. When practiced in the general population, the field of psychopharmacology tends to focus on recovery to the premorbid status (i.e., on reversible symptoms, such as major depression or significant anxiety disorder). In the case of ASD, there is usually no premorbid period in which patients had essentially normal behavior or development, unless we count the first months of life before the problems are noted. The study participants have not stored up the relevant developmental information to be released later with the onset of successful pharmacotherapy. Hence, true therapeutic success for individuals with ASD is likely to require months or even years to reach the patient's new adaptive level. This has obvious implications for pharmacological trials, including matters related to duration of the trial, ideal age of the participants (younger children may be more plastic than older adults), and therapeutic medium in which participants are embedded (e. …

Treatment of Severe Childhood Aggression (TOSCA) Studies.

[Author Affiliation]Michael G. Aman. Department of Psychiatry, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.Address correspondence to: Michael G. Aman, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, The Nisonger Center (OCEDD) Ohio State University, 1581 Dodd Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43210, E-mail: Aman.1@osu.eduFor decades we have known that physical aggression in youth often has dire consequences in later life. The Treatment of Severe Childhood Aggression or TOSCA study was a departure from earlier monotherapy studies of medication treatment for aggression because it entailed an attempt to normalize behavioral outcomes through the use of combined treatment, if needed. The impetus for TOSCA was a series of risperidone studies conducted by Janssen Pharmaceutica and others (e.g., Findling et al., 2000) published in the early 2000s. When designing TOSCA, we were especially interested in risperidone's potential to dampen aggression and other disruptive behaviors. Initially, our focus was comparison of psychostimulant vs. risperidone monotherapy, both with an adjunctive parent training (PT) program. However, using the best data available, power analyses indicated that over 2,000 participants would be needed to have sufficient sensitivity to separate treatments! Eventually, we settled on a combined treatment design not only because it dealt with the statistical-power issue but also because it was ecologically valid (i.e., it followed a common clinical practice; see Farmer et al. 2011 for methodological details).TOSCA is important because it has mapped uncharted territory insofar as pediatric drug research design is concerned. To satisfy the statistical-power issues, we advocated for the complex add-on design (i.e., combined therapy) despite the fact that we, like most practitioners, were trained that simpler is better. The TOSCA design not only called for the use of combined treatments, but one of those treatments was an antipsychotic. Such agents often provoke concern because of their reputation as powerful drugs, because they can cause possible long-term movement disorders, and because of their association with metabolic syndrome. Eventually, the NIMH funded TOSCA and, in so doing, acknowledged the importance of aggression in today's society and the reality that combined pharmacotherapy has become a common practice in child and adolescent psychiatry.The TOSCA participants were 168 children with severe physical aggression (to others, to self, and/or to property) and presence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); psychotic and bipolar disorders were excluded. All study participants received psychostimulant medication and PT in behavior management. If disruptive behavior was not normalized by 3 weeks, then either placebo or risperidone was added as co-therapy from weeks 4 through 9. Psychostimulant+PT+placebo were termed basic treatment, whereas psychostimulant+PT+risperidone were termed augmented treatment. Our earliest reports indicated that augmented treatment was more effective than basic treatment in reducing parent ratings of disruptive behavior (moderate effect size) but not clinician global ratings.Three TOSCA studies appear in this issue. Arnold et al. (2015) examined domains other than disruptive behavior as rated by parents and teachers. They found that augmented treatment resulted in a reduction to teacher-rated anxiety and further that these reductions mediated improvements in parent-rated disruptive behavior. …

Nathan Kogan (1927-2013).

Nathan Kogan, professor emeritus of psychology at the New School for Social Research and visiting scholar at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), died on April 28, 2013, in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 86. The son of immigrants from Poland and Ukraine, Nat was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on May 2, 1926. Nat described himself as a general psychologist, an apt characterization given the remarkable breadth of his research spanning cognitive, personality, social, developmental, and, most recently, evolutionary psychology. He was an unusually modest man, a conscientious collaborator, and a dedicated mentor to generations of graduate students, junior faculty, and young researchers. A prodigious researcher and a prolific writer (with more than 100 articles and chapters and several books to his credit), he was active until the very end.

Industry Influence Can Be Mediated by Understanding Theory Behind It

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessIndustry Influence Can Be Mediated by Understanding Theory Behind ItAaron LevinAaron LevinSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:10 Sep 2013https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2013.9b15AbstractIf doctors can approach the food, flattery, and friendship that underlie pharmaceutical marketing with sufficient skepticism, its biasing effects may decrease.New norms within the medical profession that keep industry at arm’s length might lessen conflict of interest, said Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., of Georgetown University Medical Center.Aaron LevinSocial science research can help understand the marketing practices of pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, but might also plausibly be used to help doctors form independent judgments about therapies and diagnostic tools, according to two Georgetown University physicians.However, doctors must first understand the techniques used to influence their choices.“Industry uses principles of social psychology to manipulate prescribing behavior; physicians unaware of such subtle influences will not try to avoid the resulting conflicts of interest,” wrote Sunita Sah, M.D., M.B.A., Ph.D., an assistant professor of business ethics at Georgetown and a research fellow at the Ethics Center at Harvard University; and Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology and physiology and of family medicine at the Georgetown University Medical Center. Their article appears in the August issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics.Earlier studies showed that physicians believe they are not personally influenced by industry but their colleagues are. “Physicians think they are making their own independent choice of therapeutics for their patients and don’t realize the extent to which they are affected by drug reps,” said Fugh-Berman in an interview. She is also director of PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advocates evidence-based prescribing and educates health care professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices. “Overconfidence and naivetȳ are a dangerous combination.”One understanding of the industry’s techniques may lie in the principles of influence and persuasion set out by social psychologists like Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University, as cited by Sah and Fugh-Berman.For a start, reciprocity might be the tenet most familiar to medical professionals. That pizza or fancy dinner provided by the drug rep sets up an implicit obligation to return the favor.Commitment to even a small goal (like prescribing that new drug to just a few patients) is amplified by a desire later to justify that choice with future consistency.Conformity (or “social proof”) is doing what others do, especially those with more prestige or authority. Industry’s use of “high-status, respected, academic physicians” to act as “key opinion leaders” is such a time-tested tactic.“The effect on trainees of observing trusted mentors accepting hospitality and funds from industry may be more powerful than the influence of institutional policies or formal curricula,” said Sah and Fugh-Berman.However, Fugh-Berman said she has noticed a change in the last five years as attitudes toward speakers with heavy industry support have become less favorable, especially among medical students.Finally, there’s simple likeability. Drug reps are hired at least as much for their social skills as for their scientific knowledge. And flattery, whether it’s a pleasant conversation over that archetypal pizza or an invitation to speak at a prestigious meeting, gets them everywhere.“Some of that social science thinking might be turned around to help medical students and trainees think the way they have already learned to read the peer-reviewed literature,” said former APA President Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D., special associate provost for health science at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “They could learn to recognize marketing techniques and begin to question more critically drug reps or speakers at those dinner meetings.”Like Sah and Fugh-Berman, Robinowitz believes that educating physicians, trainees, and medical students is the best way to minimize any biases in marketing messages.“We need to look to our leadership to help us learn this approach and help doctors make decisions based on the best evidence,” said Robinowitz.However, like it or not, the reality is that corporations exist to produce profits as well as products, she added. “Drug companies perform a useful function, and they must make money or they won’t invest in our field.”Somewhere out there between the bathwater and the babies lies a place where industry can make medicines and equipment while health professionals can find unbiased information about them.“Educational interventions have been able to move the needle on whether other physicians are affected by industry influence,” said Fugh-Berman. If enough physicians can learn to avoid the social obligations that industry cultivates and if academic medicine maintains its distance from industry, she said, “a new social norm may emerge that rejects transactions fraught with conflicts of interest.” ■An abstract of “Physicians Under the Influence: Social Psychology and Industry Marketing Strategies” is posted at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-720X. Adriane Fugh-Berman’s PharmedOut site can be found at http://www.pharmedout.org/. ISSUES NewArchived