Current Areas of Faculty Research

Barbara Curchack

As a neuropsychologist, I am fascinated by how the brain relates to our behaviors. I am developing a laboratory for understanding the ways that the brain changes as we age and what this means for memory. Specifically, I am fascinated by two memory systems. The first system, the medial-temporal lobe memory system, governs how we learn new facts. The second memory system, the dorsolateral-prefrontal lobe system, helps us remember context, like where we were when we learned those facts. My students and I work with people over the age of 65, testing their memory and higher cognitive functions with standard neuropsychological tests. Once the lab is fully developed, we will we relate older adults' performance on the neuropsychological tests to experimental measures of memory. In this way, we can look at which memory systems are most important for different types of memory tests.

In order to get older adults interested in the lab, we are currently studying how to reduce the errors that they make when they are eyewitnesses to a crime. We test people in the psychology lab at Augsburg as well as in St. Paul, at our remote research site.

I am especially interested working students who share my vision: improving the lives of older adults by respecting the ways that their bodies age.

Grace Dyrud

Reports that gambling is a 7 billion dollar business in Minnesota, that the percentage of young people with problem gambling is larger than their percentage in the population, and that college students spend more on gambling than alcohol makes people's reaction to chance an important topic for psychology. Variables which can be studied are incidence, attitude toward gambling, beliefs regarding luck and chance, effect of early wins, other variables associated with reactions to probabilities and clinical interviews with problem gamblers.

Stacy Freiheit

My primary research program attempts to shed a little light on a long-standing question in clinical psychology--how to narrow the gap between science and practice. When clinical research indicates a psychological intervention helps clients get better, how do psychologists use this research to inform their practice? I am collaborating with students and colleagues on research studies that examine how psychologists learn about and implement clinical research
findings into their practice.

I am also working with students on projects that examine how religious faith is related to psychological well-being. Is it that religion is related to how people understand stressful events? Do religious people tend to dwell more on positive rather than negative events? How is it that religion and psychological well-being are related?

In addition to these interests, I welcome ideas from students who share an enthusiasm for research (or at least want to see what it is all about) and would like to collaborate on other clinically-relevant research projects.

David Matz

My primary area of research has been to examine consensus motivations in groups. In particular, I've been examining the role of cognitive dissonance on individual group members' motivation to agree with one another and the consequent implications for the group as a whole.

Another line of research has been to examine the tenants of evolutionary psychology as they relate to attraction and mate selection. In particular, I've been studying the possibility that hair can serve as a signaling device for desirable characteristics.

Bridget Robinson-Riegler

I am currently working on two projects. The first deals with the bizzarreness effect (information presented in a bizarre context is remembered better than information presented in a common context). I am looking to see if humor mediates this effect. The other deals with the effects of speaker gesture on listener comprehension. Specifically, I am investigating whether the use of gestures reduces the cognitive resources a listener needs to understand a concept.

Nancy Steblay

(1) Blind/Sequential Police Lineup Procedures

The National Institute of Justice has awarded a grant to Augsburg College for research on eyewitness memory. The project purpose is to join behavioral data from past scientific research with current field experience and new laboratory investigation, in order to progress knowledge of best lineup practices for both law enforcement and psycho-legal research communities.

The two-year grant supports Dr. Steblay in two aspects of research. Steblay and students will continue laboratory investigation of strategies to reduce false identifications in police lineups, specifically addressing questions that emerge from field practice. Also, Steblay will collaborate with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in the county's one-year pilot study of new lineup protocol. This component will involve collection and analysis of data from 200+ police lineups in order to generate the first available objective baseline measure for blind/sequential procedures and an instructive summary of the field lineup implementation process.

(2) The impact of pretrial publicity and trial evidence on juror verdicts.

Negative pretrial publicity has a significant impact on juror judgments of a defendant, resulting in negative impressions and increased guilty verdicts. We are in the process of exploring both in the laboratory and in field research how pretrial publicity in real cases infiltrates jurors' processing of the trial evidence and ultimate decision.

** Students interested in participating in either research project should contact Dr. Steblay.