CMU Department of Psychology Colloquium
Title: Cognitive Functioning from 18 to 80
Presenter: Timothy Salthouse, PhD
Location: A53 Baker Hall/Steinberg Auditorium
Abstract: One of the most fundamental questions in the field of cognitive aging concerns the relation between age and cognitive functioning. That is, when does age-related cognitive change begin, and to what extent is it normative? These questions are important for both theoretical (i.e., what mechanisms are responsible for normal and pathological aging), and practical (i.e., when is the optimal time to start interventions intended to remediate cognitive?) reasons. Despite their centrality and apparent simplicity, no consensus has yet been reached regarding answers to these questions. In this talk I will provide tentative answers to the questions based on results from the Virginia Cognitive Aging Project (VCAP). VCAP is a mixed cross-sectional (N = 4500) and longitudinal (N = 2100) study of aging and cognition in which adults ranging from 18 to 99 years of age perform each of 16 cognitive tests at each measurement occasion.

Title:"Hijacking the Emotional Brain" 
Presenter: Karen Shanor, PhD                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Location: 817R Cathedral of Learning
Abstract: Following a brief review of some of the latest findings about
the emotions of various animal species, the discussion will focus in on
how we humans are unnecessarily putting our emotional brains at risk and
what can be done about it. An epidemic of diagnoses of Depression,
Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, ADD, and ADHD highlights preventable
functional imbalances as well as organic deterioration of the emotional
brain - especially the amygdala and hippocampus. Our modern lifestyle is
making us sick. But that need not be - at least in such proportion. Each
of us has more control over our emotional health and our brain structure
than we may realize.

Co-sponsored by Center for Philosophy of Science, the Center for the
Neural Basis of Cognition and Department of Anesthesiology

Title: "Playing with Data" Or "How to Reduce Sloppy, Faulty, and Fradulent Data Analysis"
Presenter: Klass K. Sijtsma, Ph.D.
Location: Adamson Wing, 136 Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract:
The purposes of this presentation are to discuss the fine line between correct and the incorrect ways to analyze one's data, and then to consider the risks involved in statistical data analysis. I argue that the responses researchers collect in their research result from many, often implicit choices and that the quantification of responses into numbers or scores again involves numerous choices that are rarely made explicit. Next, I argue that the resulting raw data suffer from many data problems - absence of a clearly defined population, subject dropout, outliers, missing data - that first have to be fixed before a data set emerges that can be analyzed so as to find answers to the research questions. The crucial question is how much data manipulation is admissible. A criterion for deciding what is admissible and what not could be that the manipulation is meant to maintain representativeness of the sample (admissible) without aiming at influencing research results in a desirable direction (inadmissible); that is, avoiding amplifying an effect that one desires to demonstrate.

Weaknesses of psychological research are the dominant orientation toward explorative rather than confirmatory research strategies, even in experimental research. Related to this orientation is the absence of a strong tradition of theory development, which if present would invite real confirmatory research whereas its absence easily leads to fact finding and may invite inaccurate data analysis. Short-term remedies for sloppy, faulty, and even fraudulent data analysis are making research data publicly available and hiring a methodologist or a statistician to be part of one's research projects (or at least consulting one). Long-term remedies are a commitment to theory development and an orientation away from excessive data exploration.

Department of Psychiatry Lecture Series 

Title: "The Social Context of Emotion in Adolescent Depression"
Presenter: Jennifer Silk, PhD
Location: WPIC Auditorium

Psychology Lazovik Colloquium 

Title: "Psychology in Pediatric Primary Care: Opportunities for Clinical Service, Training and Research"
Presenter: Carolyn Schroeder, PhD
Location:4127 Sennott Square

Reception to follow in 4125 Sennott Square

Sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry

Title:"Using intrinsic brain function to dissect neurodevelopmental disorders"
Presenter: Adriana Di Martino, MD
Leon Levy Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
New York University Child Study Center																												
Location: BST 1695

Sponsored by the Systems Neuroscience Institute and Department of Bioengineering

Title: "Cerebellar Internal Models Contribute to Action and Active Perception"
Presenter: Nasir Bhanpuri, Ph.D
Location: BST3 4075

Title: "Trying to understand what goes wrong in the brain in schizophrenia and how it can be fixed: How basic research informs us about the clinical picture"
Presenter: Anthony Grace, PhD
Location:125 Frick Fine Arts Bldg

Title: "How nociceptors signal itch"
Presenter: Robert LaMotte, PhD
Location:BST 1495

Sponsored by the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research

Title: "Aging and central auditory function: Inhibitory neurotransmission and maladaptive plasticity"
Presenter: Donald Caspary, PhD
Location: 6014 BST-3

Sponsored by the Department of Otolaryngology and the Auditory Research Group