The Texas Tech, Department of Psychological Sciences Blog can now be found at www.depts.ttu.edu/psy/media/ or via RSS.

Dr. Amelia Talley, an assistant professor in the experimental – social area, was recognized in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for her recent study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

The study examined the drinking behaviors and identity of sexual minority women across a 10 year period. Talley and her colleagues found that sexual orientation discordance may contribute to hazardous dinking within this population, this being particularly pronounces in older adulthood. These results point to the importance of cognitive-behavior consistency among those with diverse and fluid identities.

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Nadeem Dabbakeh, an undergraduate psychology major and research assistant, has been chosen to receive the 2015-2016 Dr. Sarah Kulkofsky Scholarship. He will receive $500 dollars to assist with research, and was recognized during the annual TTU Undergraduate Research spring banquet.

Dabbakeh is an RA in Dr. Ireland’s Language and Social Interaction Lab, where he is currently working on a project involving Arabic monolinguals, and Arabic-English bilingual frame switching.

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Eevin Akers, a graduate student in the Experimental - Cognitive program, and General Psychology teacher, used her pet parrots as a live example for her students.

As part of a demonstration to better assimilate important aspects of the course, such as learning, memory, and cognition, the parrots would perform tricks for different kinds of reinforcement. Students would then write reflective papers, applying the psychological concepts they had learned in class to the real world. 

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Sean O’Bryan, a first year graduate student in the Experimental – Cognitive program, won Cognitive Neurosciences Society’s Graduate Student Award for his abstract submission to do with selective attention and base-rate neglect. 

Sean will be presenting his findings in a specially-recognized session at the 2015 CNS Annual meeting in San Francisco, CA.

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Dr. Jim Clopton has won this month's Eta Omicron Nu (ΗΟΝ) Faculty Appreciation Award.

Eta Omicron Nu is a social and community service organization affiliated with the Texas Tech Honors College, emphasizing student involvement in the community.

Dr. Clopton has been teaching and practicing at Texas Tech as a part of the clinical division for 38 years. In that time he has also been an active part of the Lubbock community, working specifically with the homeless.

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At the 48th Annual Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Convention, Dr. Andrew Littlefield will receive the Addictive Behaviors Special Interest Group’s Early Career Achievement Award. This award is given out every two years to newer doctors for their contribution to the field of addictive behaviors.

Dr. Littlefield received his Ph.D. in 2013, but first published in 2009, and continues to contribute to the understanding of drug and alcohol use. His work focuses on developmental change in alcohol involvement as it relates to personality, impulsivity, and motivation, from a variety of perspectives.

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Cognitive faculty member Dr. Tyler Davis has been recognized in Texas Tech Today for his contributions to long-term memory research.  By using fMRI, Dr. Davis has studied why some new experiences feel familiar.  His work provides neurological evidence for global similarity models, which predicted that we judge familiarity by comparing a current experience to all of our storied memories, not just to those that are most recent or most relevant.  As Dr. Davis told Texas Tech Today, "We often feel like we are just retrieving that previous trip to that one particular restaurant when we are asked whether we'd been there before, but there is a lot of behavioral evidence that we activate many other memories as well when we judge familiarity."

Dr. Davis' general research interests are in categorization.  As well as working for the TTU psychology department, he is also the assistant director of the school's Neuroimaging Institute.  Congratulations to Dr. Davis for his success!


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Congratulations to human factors graduate student Brittany Neilson, whose hard work and dedication to space research has earned her the Texas Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship.  This fellowship is funded through NASA and awarded to applicants who demonstrate excellence in academics as well as an interest in space.  Brittany is currently on internship at NASA Langley Research Center.  Great job representing TTU, Brittany!

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This spring, the Texas Tech College of Arts and Sciences presented Dr. Robert Morgan with one of two Outstanding Researcher Awards. Dr. Morgan, a John G. Skelton, Jr. Regents Endowed Professor in Psychology, has been at TTU since 2000 and specializes in forensics and correctional psychology. In addition, he is the Director of Forensic Services at StarCare Specialty Health System.

Previously, he has received the 2003 Early Career Achievement Award in Division 18 and the 2006 Outstanding Contribution to Science Award from the Texas Psychological Association. Congratulations to Dr. Morgan on his many achievements!

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