The annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in New Orleans drew to a close a little over a week ago. Following tradition (anything that lasts more than 3 years is surely a tradition?), one of my incredibly helpful elves again surveyed a few posters by junior researchers during several of the poster sessions.
I interviewed the authors of the (arbitrarily) chosen posters by email to get a better sense of what the next generation of Psychonomes is up to and what they hope to achieve. Specifically, I asked the authors four questions:
- What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?
- What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom18?
- What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom19)?
- Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?
Here are the posters and the responses from the first few authors who got back to me—I have a few more requests out and if they come in soon I may post an update. And please accept my apologies if you weren’t approached during the meeting: this sample was entirely arbitrary, and if you presented a poster and want to have it taken up on this blog, get in touch once you publish it in a Psychonomics journal.
Stereotype Congruency and Cognitive Control in the Shooter Task
by JAYMES DURRISEAU and JARROD MOSS, Mississippi State University
Jaymes replied as follows:
1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?
The experimental shooter paradigm consistently shows a shooting bias such that Black armed targets are shot faster than White armed targets. This bias can be modulated by various attentional strategies and is related to executive functioning abilities.
2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom18?
I really enjoyed the enthusiastic conversations I had with other researchers throughout the weekend. It was also nice to see past professors and colleagues.
3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom19)?
It would have been nice to have more time for questions following each speaker during the 15 minute talks.
4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?
To name a few, the countless educational implications that many of the researchers showed are much needed in today’s society as we steadily gain access to more and more information than ever before. Additionally, I personally picked my area of research because I see how beneficial our science can be at preventing the tragic loss of life to innocent people.
Thematic Similarity in Abstract vs. Concrete Pairs: Role of Salience and Processing Style
by KATJA WIEMER and JANE NEAL, Northern Illinois University
Katja replied as follows:
1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?
The findings of our experiments suggest that thematic relations between concrete concepts (like cats chase mice) seem to be strongly represented in memory, whereas the relations between abstract concepts (like practice leads to improvement) appear to be more flexible.
2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom18?
I heard a few talks that inspired productive thoughts for the next step in my ongoing research, and had good and productive conversations with some colleagues.
3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom19)?
I wish it was easier for poster presenters grouped in the same topic to interact, since we sometimes work on highly related things and can learn from each other. It’s nice to be able to look at a poster before the session, but it’s not the same as actually talking
4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?
One prevalent problem that has made headlines recently is the abundance of false information and the difficulty to correct beliefs based on such misinformation. I have seen a growing body of research on this at this conference in recent years – it would be great to see this research inform discussions, media, etc. and to see it communicated to the general public in ways that they can easily apply when stuck in difficult arguments.
Executive Functions Involved in Affective Theory-of-Mind in the Elderly
by YUKI OTSUKA, Kyoto University, MIHO SHIZAWA, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, AYUMI SATO, Shimane University, and SHOJI ITAKURA, Kyoto University
Here are her replies:
1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?
After aging-related decline of executive function, inhibition (which is a sub-executive function) remains an important factor for individual differences in affective theory-of-mind of elderly people.
2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom18?
I enjoyed the opportunity to spot the latest trends and know new directions in Psychonomic research. Free Wifi was very helpful.
3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom19)?
I want to try to use more features of the app, especially invitations and contacts.
4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?
I think that the coming of an IT society created a new environment for the human mind, and Psychonomic research can help us adjust ourselves to a new environment.