Psychology

Meet Students You Help When You Pay It Forward

dreessen — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 13:55:33 +0000

Meet Students You Help When You Pay It Forward dreessen Wed, 03/26/2025 - 09:55

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Names Presidential Scholars for 2024–25

rime — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:50:10 +0000

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Names Presidential Scholars for 2024–25 rime Fri, 11/01/2024 - 14:50

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Ushers In a New Academic Year

rime — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 14:30:48 +0000

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Ushers In a New Academic Year rime Fri, 08/30/2024 - 10:30

Human Development

barkan — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:03:04 +0000

Human Development barkan Thu, 07/25/2024 - 12:03

Program Highlights

The psychology department encourages student participation in the Psychology Club, Psi Chi Honor Society, colloquia, internships, career and graduate school workshops, and departmental governance.

Sample Courses

Genetics
Heredity
Introductory Psychology

Human Development

Why study human development at �鶹��ý�Ŷ�?

This minor provides a better understanding of human development for students interested in occupations providing services for children and adults. Courses facilitate understanding of the psychological, social, and biological contexts of development. Although the focus is on normative development, courses also deal with individual variations in development and with abnormal development.

Program Option

Minor in Human Development

Additional Option

Concentration in Human Development in Early Childhood/Childhood Education (B–6)

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Popular Electives

Adolescent Development
Adult Development and Aging
Child Development
Developmental Psychopathology
Exploration of Human Diversity
Human Ecology
Illness, Self, and Society
Sociology of Families

Contact Info

Karen Mooney, Lecturer in Psychology
mooneyk@geneseo.edu
Bailey Hall 135
585-245-6047

psychology dept

psychology faculty

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Cognitive Science

barkan — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:50:14 +0000

Cognitive Science barkan Thu, 07/25/2024 - 11:50

Program Highlights

The psychology department encourages student participation in the Psychology Club, Psi Chi Honor Society, colloquia, internships, career and graduate school workshops, and departmental governance.

Popular Electives

Human Neuropsychology
Language and Culture
Language Socialization
Philosophy of Language
Psychology of Language
Science of Sound
Sensation and Perception
The Nature of Light and Color

Cognitive Science

Why study cognitive science at �鶹��ý�Ŷ�?

Cognitive science is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field aimed at developing an understanding of the human mind. This minor gives students a foundation in disciplines involved with investigating the nature of mental activity. It’s excellent preparation for students planning to attend graduate school in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, computer science, linguistics, or philosophy. The minor can also be used to prepare for advanced training or a career in human factors.

Program Option

Minor in Cognitive Science

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Sample Courses

Intro to Behavioral Research Methods
Intro to Cognitive Psychology
Intro to Logic
Intro to Programming in R
Introductory Psychology
Philosophy of Mind

Contact Info

Jason Ozubko, Associate Professor of Psychology
ozubko@geneseo.edu
Bailey Hall 133
585-245-5249

Psychology dept

psychology faculty

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Six Students Win Prestigious Gilman Scholarships

rime — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:30:04 +0000

Six Students Win Prestigious Gilman Scholarships rime Wed, 05/22/2024 - 15:30

Schneider Earns Distinguished Teaching Professor Distinction

dreessen — Thu, 02 May 2024 16:55:46 +0000

Schneider Earns Distinguished Teaching Professor Distinction dreessen Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:55

Spacial Learning is Boosted with Optimal Memory Organization

patenaude — Thu, 02 May 2024 12:58:47 +0000

Spacial Learning is Boosted with Optimal Memory Organization

Thursday, May 2, 2024

patenaude Thu, 05/02/2024 - 08:58

Google Street View navigation experience used in the study (Image provided)

Jason Ozubko

Article title:

"Stereotypical hippocampal clustering predicts navigational success in virtualized real-world environments"

Summary:

People who excel at navigating new environments share a similar, optimal way their brains organize memory and direction-sensing, hinting at a potential universal blueprint for spatial learning success.

Abstract:

Structural differences along the hippocampal long-axis have long been believed to underlie meaningful functional differences. Recent findings show that data-driven parcellations of the hippocampus sub-divide the hippocampus into a 10-cluster map with anterior-medial, anterior-lateral, and posteroanterior-lateral, middle, and posterior components. We tested whether task and experience could modulate this clustering using a spatial learning experiment where male and female participants were trained to virtually navigate a novel neighborhood in a Google Street View-like environment. Participants were scanned while navigating routes early in training and at the end of a two-week training period. Using the 10-cluster map as the ideal template, we find that participants who eventually learn the neighborhood well have hippocampal cluster-maps consistent with the ideal—even on their second day of learning—and their cluster mappings do not deviate over the two week training period. However, participants who eventually learn the neighborhood poorly begin with hippocampal cluster-maps inconsistent with the ideal template, though their cluster mappings may become more stereotypical after the two week training. Interestingly this improvement seems to be route-specific: after some early improvement, when a new route is navigated, participants’ hippocampal maps revert back to less stereotypical organization. We conclude that hippocampal clustering is not dependent solely on anatomical structure, and instead is driven by a combination of anatomy, task, and importantly, experience. Nonetheless, while hippocampal clustering can change with experience, efficient navigation depends on functional hippocampal activity clustering in a stereotypical manner, highlighting optimal divisions of processing along the hippocampal anterior-posterior and medial-lateral-axes.

Primary research questions:

The hippocampus (an area that is key to spatial memory) organizes into 10 distinct clusters (the mICA-10 map) while at rest, we wanted to know what this map means.

1. Does the hippocampus stay organized in the mICA-10 configuration during a task that uses the hippocampus (like spatial navigation)?

2. Does the organization of the hippocampus change as someone learns a new spatial environment? (i.e., does the organization look different in a new environment and does it change as someone learns that environment?)

3. Does spatial navigation ability or performance affect the hippocampus' organization? (i.e., do people who learn environments easily show different hippocampal organization maps compared to those who are poorer spatial learners?)

What the research builds on:

The hippocampus organizes into 10 distinct clusters while at rest. The hippocampus is heavily involved in both spatial learning and spatial navigation. Its precise organization and how it might change during spatial navigation and spatial learning however were unknown.

What the research adds to the discussion:

We have documented the organization of the hippocampus during a spatial learning task, and specifically shown how experience and ability influence its organization. Specifically, the hippocampus organizes into the mICA-10 map for strong spatial learners in both new and practiced environments. For weaker spatial learners, their hippocampi are not clearly organized into the mICA-10 map in new environments, but as they gain experience with those new environments such that they become practiced environments, the hippocampal organization changes to become more mICA-10-like.

Novel methodology:

We used masked independent component analysis (mICA) to find clusters of functional activity in the hippocampus. Essentially, this involves looking at the neural activity in the hippocampus, and finding regions that seem to be processing separate kinds of information than others. This approach was not our invention but it has been sparsely used. Previous approaches to segmenting the hippocampus involve looking at its anatomy and determining clusters based on anatomical borders, under the assumption that different processing is occurring in different anatomical regions. Our approach is more data-driven and looks directly at the functional activity to find clusters of common activity, rather than assuming anatomical borders divide activity.

Implications for society:

Our work helps us understand why some individuals may be better or worse at learning spatial environments, and suggests that individuals who are worse may be so because their natural brain organization is suboptimal. However our work also shows that with experience those individuals can re-organize into more optimal organizations. This work helps us understand how optimal brain organization may be critical for learning in many domains, and how one underlying task with learning may be to learn how to organize our brains in more ideal ways, for whatever task is at hand.

Implications for research:

This work provides a basis for future research in spatial memory. The mICA-10 approach we present can be used in future research to further use functional activity to map brain organization, rather than depend on anatomical segregation to guess at border of functional activity. Also, future research which could identify other optimal organizational maps of the hippocampus in other tasks (assuming there are other optimal organizational maps in other conditions) might shed light on the dynamic ways in which our brains can re-organize to tackle different problems.

Funding:

NIH grant 1R15NS104979-01

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� undergraduates Madelyn Campbell '23, Abigail Verhayden '24, Brooke Demetri '21, Molly Brady '19; John Thorp, PhD candidate, Columbia University; Iva Brunec, PhD, University of Pennsyvania & Temple University

Jason D. Ozubko, Madelyn Campbell, Abigail Verhayden, Brooke Demetri, Molly Brady, John Thorp, and Iva Brunec, "Stereotypical hippocampal clustering predicts navigational success in virtualized real-world environments," Journal of Neuroscience, 19 April 2024, e1057232024

Journal of Neuroscience (2024)

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Announces New School of Arts and Sciences and Interim Dean

khowell — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:57:31 +0000

�鶹��ý�Ŷ� Announces New School of Arts and Sciences and Interim Dean khowell Thu, 02/15/2024 - 07:57

Five �鶹��ý�Ŷ� Students Win Gilman International Scholarships

rime — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 19:14:41 +0000

Five �鶹��ý�Ŷ� Students Win Gilman International Scholarships rime Mon, 12/18/2023 - 14:14