UAB Psychology Update

PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE | SPRING 2017

DRIVING &

AUTISM How to Help Young Adults be Successful

THE PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE

SPRING 2017 | UAB PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE The Psychology Update is a news magazine written for students, faculty and alumni of the UAB Department of Psychology UAB PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE EXECUTIVE EDITOR Karlene Ball, Ph.D. EDITOR + CONTENT Mary Frances Thetford, M.Ed. CONTENT + DESIGN Lauren Vardaman FOLLOW UAB PSYCHOLOGY

A Look Inside the Ost 06 Student Spotlight 08 Haley Callahan Becomes the First Graduate of Psychology’s Online Degree Program Driving and Autism: Researchers Studying “How to Help Young Adults be Successful”

Faculty Finds 10 UAB Receives Grant to Better Serve Those with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Central Alabama Study Finds Parents’ Perceptions Play Key Role in Teens’ Driving Preparedness UAB Professor Uses Latest Virtual Reality Technology to Improve Access to Pedestrian Safety Education Words Under a Microscope

Congratulations 14 SCAHIP Cohort

New Psychology Courses 15 Statistical Programming (PY 791 / PY 436)

OUR VISION To be an internationally recognized research department and a first choice for education.

Dr. Burel Goodin ● Dr. David Schwebel ● Kathleen Hamrick ● Dr. Edwin Cook III Dean’s Award Winners ● Dr. Rajesh Kana ● Whitney Rice ● Mugdha Mokashi

and apply behavioral science for the benefit of all people.

Department Achievements 04

OUR MISSION To discover knowledge about behavior and its underlying biology and teach

INSIDE

>> PY ACHIEVEMENTS

KATHLEEN HAMRICK

DR. BUREL GOODIN

was named the 2017 recipient of the John C. Liebeskind Early Career Scholar Award by the American Pain Society. The John C. Liebeskind Early Career Scholar Award was named in 1998 to honor the memory of John C. Liebeskind, PhD, a past president of APS who was a noted pain researcher, scientist, and teacher. The Early Career Scholar Award recognizes early career achievements that have made outstanding contributions to pain scholarship.

DR. DAVID SCHWEBEL

Professor in the Department of Psychology and Associate Dean for Research in the Sciences, has been named a University Professor by the Board of Trustees. According to the guidelines for faculty appointments, the rank of University Professor is a campus-wide appointment primarily in a specific discipline and is to bestow on an individual an academic rank that transcends departmental and disciplinary lines. It is also intended to allow each designated individual the greatest latitude in teaching, writing, and scholarly research, and is to give such an individual with broad expertise a UAB-wide platform.

In addition, Dr. Schwebel received the Dennis Drotar Distinguished Research Award from the Society of Pediatric Psychology, which is the top research award in the scientific society in which Dr. Schwebel is most active.

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an alumna of the Department of Psychology, was named as one of the Birmingham Business Journal’s 2017 Top 40 under 40. Hamrick, 29 is the Director of Marketing and Education at the UAB Innovation Lab – a partnership between the UAB Collat School of Business and Innovation Depot where she plays an integral role in the sourcing of seed investment for student-led startups and in the implementation of for-credit experimental programs for students interested in entrepreneurship and innovation.

She has been instrumental in successful grant and award submissions and runs social media efforts. Prior to the iLab, she was involved in startup companies, including one pursuing cancer molecular diagnostics.

FORMER FACULTY UPDATE

June 2017 marks five years since Dr. James Cox and Dr. Rosalyn Weller moved post-retirement to Longmont, Colorado to be closer to some of Jim’s family. Jim served as faculty from 1981 – 2011, and Roz served from 1986 – 2011 (Behavioral Neuroscience). Both have found new activities to keep busy: more bicycling, volunteer work, and, most significantly, playing music. Roz initially did a lot of volunteer work for their neighborhood HOA, but now is on the board of a local charity, HOPE, for people experiencing homelessness. Jim takes guitar and singing lessons and performs acoustic blues/folk songs at a local coffeeshop open mic. Roz takes upright bass lessons and plays at a couple of bluegrass jams/week, at a brewery and a coffee shop. Jim is also the substitute bass player for a band, Weld County Ramblers, and will play at the Greeley (CO) Stampede and “Chainsaws and Chuckwagons” in Firestone. If you want to contact Roz or Jim (book them for a gig?), their emails are: reweller@ uab.edu and jecox@uab.edu. Thanks for updating us, Roz and Jim! Would love to hear you both play music and sing! Happy Retirement!

DEAN’S AWARD WINNERS

Doctoral Joseph Griffis, Department of Psychology Psychology Joseph Griffis, Outstanding Doctoral Student Victoria Seghatol-Eslami, Outstanding Undergraduate Student Undergraduate Neuroscience Program Courtney Walker, Outstanding Undergraduate Student

DR. RAJESH KANA

was chosen as one of the recipients of the Graduate Dean’s Excellence in Mentorship Award for 2017. The Awards were presented during a special Mentorship Awards event held April 5 in the UAB Alumni House.

TWO PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS NAMED UAB OUTSTANDING WOMEN

This spring, UAB honored seven Outstanding Women during a special ceremony in the UAB Alumni House.

The UAB Commission on the Status of Women presented the awards during Women’s History Month to honor women in the UAB and Birmingham communities who have mentored or served other women and taken a courageous stance or overcome adversity to achieve a goal. Two recipients are from the Department of Psychology.

(Other recipients included: Silvia Gisiger-Camata, Outstanding UAB Staff Member; Alesia Jones, Susan D. Marchase Outstanding Woman Administrator; Carolyn S. Ashworth, M.D., Becky Trigg Outstanding UAB Faculty Member; Lowell Christy, Outstanding Woman in the Community; Marsha Hoke Hire, Outstanding Woman in the Community)

MUGDHA MOKASHI,

Outstanding Woman Student

Mokashi is enrolled in the undergraduate neuroscience program and on the fast track to a master’s degree for public health as a prelude to medical school. She also is the newly elected president of the Undergraduate Student Government Association.

A dedicated activist for social justice and reproductive rights, she has championed women’s issues on campus. Mokashi founded the UAB chapter of URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity and also is a trained survivor advocate at Crisis Center Rape Response.

One nominator says Mokashi “loudly calls for accurate and honest sexual health education” as a tool to prevent disease and prevent sexual assault. “In my work with her as a student leader and advocate on the UAB campus, it has become very clear to me that Mugdha is often the person who stands up to say what no one else will.”

Mokashi also started a Women in STEM mentoring and outreach program with a faculty member that has allowed many undergraduates, graduates and professionals to connect and find support in a field she says can often be exclusionary and isolating.

Her long-term plans are to pursue an MD-PhD in gynecology, conduct research in women’s health and provide access to adequate health care for lowincome women of color.

WHITNEY S. RICE, DrPH, Outstanding UAB Postdoc

Rice, a postdoc in psychology, is professionally dedicated to addressing social stigma regarding the reproductive decisions women make. Her research has focused on disparities in use of prenatal care and the role of HIV-related stigma on antiretroviral therapy adherence in women, and she has published on the role of reproductive stigmas in reproductive decision-making and unintended pregnancies.

In addition to her academic dedication, Rice has volunteered with the local Planned Parenthood.

Rice has been a mentor to women undergraduate and graduate students through formal roles, but she also is quick to help her peers when the need arises, they say.

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

Beginning Fall 2019, The new Arts and Sciences building will be home to the following departments: Anthropology, Computer and Information Sciences, English, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Social Work.

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THE COMPETITION

The annual Undergraduate Research Competition, the “OST,” hosted by the Psychology Department, showcased some of the department’s best undergraduate research. Posters were created by undergraduates who presented original research, extensions, and colloborations with faculty and graduate student mentors. Each poster was evaluated by a group of faculty judges.

The department awarded cash prizes to the top posters. This year’s Ost Undergraduate Research Competition was a great success with well over 100 in attendance and a record number 29 presenters in the Green and Gold Room of the Bartow Arena. The posters of the winners will be displayed outside suite 415 in Campbell Hall.

THE WINNERS

Tyler Orem Poster: “Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex Activity Varies with Individual Differences in the Psychosocial Stress Response” Primary mentor: Dr. David Knight, Department of Psychology Josiah J. Robinson Poster: “Differences in Distracted Driving Behavior among Drivers with Developmental Disabilities” Primary mentor: Dr. Despina Stavrinos, Department of Psychology

THE

Ost

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GUEST SPEAKER Gareth Jones

Assistant Director Service Learning and Undergraduate Research at UAB

Gareth Jones joined the UAB Office of Service Learning and Undergraduate Research in December of 2015. Before arriving at UAB, Gareth taught film studies and was the Director of Student Success at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.

He also developed and taught the online film courses at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. He began his academic career at Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Georgia where he helped implement and teach the Film Studies degree. While there, he also served as the Director of Learning Assistance, First Year Experience, and as the Director of the QEP. He received his graduate degree from Hollins University. In addition, for nearly the past two decades Gareth has kept his love of cinema alive by working as a logistics consultant for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Ultimately, Gareth strives to guide students into developing a keen critical mind whether in the classroom, a workshop, office space, a film festival, or online.

AWARD RECIPIENTS

Graduate Student Awards Joseph C. Griffis Outstanding Graduate Student in the Department of Psychology Emilee Burgess Outstanding Graduate Student in Medical/ Clinical Psychology Joseph C. Griffis Gregg Steele Outstanding Student in Behavioral Neuroscience Haley Johnson Bishop Outstanding Graduate Student in Lifespan and Developmental Psychology Undergraduate Student Awards Morgan Parr & Victoria Seghatol-Eslami Passey Prize for the Outstanding Student in Psychology Regan Gaskin UAB Psychology Department Achievement Award Hriday Bhambhvani & Courtney Walker Outstanding Undergraduate Students in Neuroscience SPRING 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 7

>> STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Haley Callahan This spring, Haley Callahan will become the first graduate of UAB’s online psychology degree program, a feat she accomplished fighting through two chronic illnesses. While attending on-campus classes at another university like most of her peers, Haley’s health began to decline as she battled Crohn’s disease and epilepsy. It was crucial to Haley that she continue her education.

“My mom and I were determined that, if I were going to leave the four-year college and attend an online program, it needed to be extremely reputable,” Haley said.

“After researching UAB’s program extensively, it just felt right to me,” she said. “It felt like I was meant to be a Blazer all along — it just took me a little longer to get there.”

Haley enrolled in UAB’s online Bachelor of Science psychology degree program offered through the College of Arts and Sciences.

“I decided to take a chance and enroll in UAB’s online psychology program to make things easier on my health, while still earning my degree from a well-respected university,” Haley said. “I quickly learned that becoming a Blazer was one of the best decisions I had ever made.”

The online Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at UAB, which launched in Fall 2016, can be taken completely online without any on-campus requirements, providing more flexibility for students like Haley who cannot come to campus. While offered online, the courses are taught by the same faculty and with the same requirements as the traditional degree, giving online students as rich of an experience as possible.

Following graduation, Haley will be pursuing a master’s degree in counseling from Northwestern University, which also offers a 100 percent online degree option.

Story by Katherine Shonesy

“I liked the fact that the online program was treated seriously,” Haley said. “When many people think of online degrees, they assume the students are taking the easy way out; but this was not the case. The courses I participated in were just as, if not more, rigorous and demanding as the in-person courses I took in the past.”

From student to counselor While taking classes like Abnormal Psychology, the Psychology of Marriage, and Drugs and Human Behavior, Haley was able to get even further clarity on where she wanted to go in the future.

“I absolutely loved Abnormal Psychology; the material covered in this course is what I hope to do for a living, so it was great to get a deeper understanding of things like depression and schizophrenia,” she said.

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Driving and Autism: Researchers Studying “How to Help Young Adults be Successful”

By Matt Windsor

Do people with autism struggle behind the wheel?

A new study from researchers at UAB’s Translational Research for Injury Prevention Laboratory (TRIP Lab), offers what may be the first lab-tested answer to that question.

The UAB researchers used a driving simulator to challenge 16 young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 16 typically developing young adults in a course filled with hazards.

They found no significant difference between the two groups. The results were published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders online in January 2017, and the finding drew significant interest on social media.

“People in the autism community were excited to hear about the results,” says Haley Johnson Bishop, a graduate student in UAB’s Lifespan Developmental Doctoral Psychology Program and first author on the study.

“Driving already causes anxiety for parents and teens, and the additional challenges of developmental disabilities make it even more daunting,” she notes. “Parents say, ‘How can I know if my child is ready or able to drive?’ but unfortunately there are not a lot of resources available.”

License to thrive Bishop aims to help alleviate that problem. Her graduate research is focused on driving behavior among people with developmental disabilities.

“According to the most recent estimate, about 25 percent of people with ASD are driving, compared to 85 to 90 percent of the general population,” Bishop says. In Alabama, and much of the United States, it can be difficult to find and keep a job without a driver’s license, she points out.

HALEY JOHNSON BISHOP

Graduate Student

Watch out for that taxi The new UAB study was co-authored with TRIP Lab director Despina Stavrinos, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology, and Fred Biasini, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department. It appears to be the first research to examine hazard response among licensed drivers with autism. “Most of the literature right now is survey data, based on interviews with parents and teens and driving instructors,” Bishop says.

The UAB study took a different approach. The 32 participants each had anywhere from a few months to a few years of experience behind the wheel.

They were given time to get used to driving the TRIP Lab’s simulator. Then they were confronted with eight different hazard situations. These included a truck backing out of a driveway onto the street, jaywalking pedestrians, a car pulling out from behind a stopped vehicle, and swerving bicyclists. The researchers measured how long it took each driver to react — letting off the accelerator, applying the brakes, or steering away from the danger. They also tracked driving errors: collisions, speeding, and veering off the digital roadway.

The results were similar across the two groups, but there was one significant difference, Bishop says. The researchers had classified the road hazards as either social — those involving pedestrians or cyclists — or non-social — those involving other cars. The typically developing drivers in the study reacted more quickly to the social hazards than the non-social ones. The drivers with ASD, meanwhile, showed no difference in reaction times between social and non-social hazards.

“People don’t often think of driving as a social interaction, but you are really doing a lot of interacting with people when you drive,” Bishop says. That includes judging other drivers’ intentions at a four-way stop, for example, or negotiating a lane merge on a busy highway on-ramp. If future studies confirm that drivers with ASD have difficulty reacting to social hazards, “that could certainly be addressed with training,” Bishop says. She points out that computer-based hazard response and perception training is already required for new drivers in many countries.

Practice, practice, practice One option may be to give pre-drivers a safe space in which to practice. In 2016, the TRIP Lab debuted a hightech immersive driving simulator. It features floor-to-ceiling video screens surrounding around an actual Honda SUV, which rests on hydraulics that allow it to lean realistically in response to turns and braking. (It is believed to be the world’s first such SUV-based simulator.)

“If you can expose people to situations in a safe, controlled environment, you can teach them to respond appropriately,” says Bishop. “We’ve talked to many of our parents about this, and they are very interested. They are desperate for help and training — anything that can help their kids achieve the life they’ve imagined for them.”

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UAB Receives Grant to Better Serve Those with

Autism Spectrum Disorder in Central Alabama

by Alicia Rohan

DR. FRED BIASINI

Associate Professor Associate Director of Sparks Clinics

DR. SARAH O’KELLEY Assistant Professor Director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) Clinic at UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics

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One of three Alabama Regional Autism Networks has opened at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Civitan-Sparks Clinics to empower persons af all ages and all levels of functioning who have an autism spectrum disorder, as well as their families.

The UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics were awarded a $75,000 grant to establish the network at UAB that will serve central Alabama by providing connections to resources for those with ASD, and for their families, technical assistance, and consultation services, as well as ASD-education programs to the general public and professional training.

“These network centers are a key step in developing a system of care for people with ASD and their families throughout Alabama,” said Fred J. Biasini, Ph.D., director of the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics in the UAB Department of Pediatrics, and associate professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology. “In working with Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, we will be able to provide additional resources and promote meaningful public awareness for those with ASD.”

ARAN

The new Alabama Regional Autism Network, or ARAN, is consistent with and complements the ASD training mission of the UAB Maternal and Child Health Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and Related Disabilities and Alabama’s University Center of Excellence on Developmental Disabilities, led by Sarah O’Kelley, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and chair of the Alabama Autism Providers Network. It also enhances the training and consultation opportunities within the UAB Department of Pediatrics by building upon existing connections across campus and in the community with an emphasis in ASD, including ongoing work in various schools and departments at UAB and Children’s of Alabama.

ARANs will play an important role in ensuring a foundation built on evidence-based practices and connecting those resources to the people who need them.

A constituency board made up of people with ASD and their families will help guide ARANs as they continue to develop, helping to ensure those served may enjoy meaningful and successful lives.

“The Alabama Interagency Autism Coordinating Council established the ARANs as part of the overall strategic plan of care and guide a collaborative effort to facilitate a lifelong system of care and support for persons with an ASD or associated condition and their families, to further enrich their lives, ” said Anna McConnell, coordinator of the AIACC. 10 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SPRING 2017

Study Finds

Parents’ Perceptions

>> PY FACULTY FINDS

Play Key Role in Teens’ Driving Preparedness

by Katherine Shonesy

Preparing teens for safe, independent driving could save lives, though historically there has been very little research to guide parents of teens with learner permits. A new study from University of Alabama at Birmingham developmental psychologist Jessica Mirman, Ph.D., offers insight into how parents can affect when their teen gets licensed. With colleagues at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Michigan, Mirman studied more than 450 families from the time teens got their learner permits through the initial years of independent licensure. Results from the study were published this month in “Health Psychology.”

The researchers evaluated if the amount of time it took for teens to get a license was affected by parents’ perceptions of adolescents’ readiness to drive, teens’ diversity of supervised practice (i.e., the number of different environments where practice occurred), and whether or not the family participated in an Internet-based parentsupervised driving intervention program. Each parent-child pair of participants completed periodic surveys over 24 weeks and were then followed up with to determine the teens’ licensure status. The participants were either part of a control group that did not use the intervention or part of a group that did.

“The importance of school readiness is well understood by many parents of younger children, but if you ask parents about readiness to drive, they are much less certain,” said Mirman, who is an assistant professor in UAB’s Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. “The school readiness metrics we have for young kids just don’t exist yet for teen drivers. Most behind-the-wheel license tests really just focus on the basics of how to operate a vehicle and the rules of the road. These are necessary, but not sufficient, prerequisites for being a safe independent driver.”

Overall, the study showed that parents tended to believe their teens were as safe as, or slightly safer than, drivers in general, but these beliefs about overall safety were not related to how fast teens were licensed. Instead, licensing speed correlated with parents’ perceptions of their teen’s skill in comparison to their teen’s peers.

“The results indicate that efforts to communicate with parents about their teens’ readiness, or unreadiness, to drive will fall short in making an impact on their decision on when they should get their licenses,” Mirman said.

zone of

DR. JESSICA MIRMAN Assistant Professor

DEVELOPMENT Previous studies show that higher-order skills such as situational awareness, visual searching abilities, hazard anticipation and risk management skills are important for safe driving. However, Mirman’s prior research has shown that parents don’t usually focus on these types of skills during supervised practice drives. Instead, they gravitate to the basics, like vehicle maintenance and everyday routine trips.

“Ideally, we want to see teens practicing in what developmental and educational psychologists call a ‘zone of proximal development,’” Mirman said. “This means that their driving practice is appropriately calibrated to their growing skill set and is not too easy and not too hard.”

Mirman suggests that parents find that sweet spot to practice in and continue to adjust their level of support as the teen improves and takes on new challenges.

“Professional driver evaluators can be an asset to parents because they can provide objective feedback about the areas where teens need more practice and give practical tips tailored to a family’s specific needs,” Mirman said.

The results also showed that the time it takes teens to get licensed was not affected by the parent supervised practice intervention, which was designed to increase the quality of supervised practice driving.

“This is good, because we don’t want to see interventions lessening the amount of time that teens are spending during the learner period or lead to a false sense of confidence,” Mirman said.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health as part of a broader and longer-term investigation of teen drivers. Additional findings will be reported in coming months.

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>> PY FACULTY FINDS

UAB Professor Uses Latest Virtual Reality Technology to Improve Access to Pedestrian Safety Education

by Katherine Shonesy

Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of death in children in the United States and around the world The Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area is ranked No. 13

by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition in a 2016 report of cities where people walking are more likely to be killed by vehicles, with 150 pedestrian deaths reported. Dr. David Schwebel loads a smartphone into the Google Cardboard viewing device to begin the virtual reality training exercise. A University of Alabama at Birmingham psychology professor has focused his research on developing technologies to help children learn how to cross the street in an accessible, safe environment. His latest project, an immersive virtual reality mobile application that uses Google Cardboard, takes the accessibility to the next level.

“Safe pedestrian behavior requires sophisticated cognitiveperceptual skills,” said David Schwebel, Ph.D., “Because those skills are still developing in children, they are particularly vulnerable in pedestrian situations.”

As director of UAB’s Youth Safety Lab, Schwebel worked to develop this technology after creating virtual reality applications in less mobile platforms, and realizing that the need to make the training tool more accessible was necessary in order to improve pedestrian safety education.

Schwebel’s first iteration of the virtual reality intervention program was available in a nonmobile desktop computer format. From there, he adapted the technology into a larger, mobile simulator. That simulator is able to move from one location to the next but, given its size, does have limitations.

The Google Cardboard platform allows for a completely mobile and immersive virtual reality experience, and Schwebel is using it to evaluate 7- and 8-year-olds’ safe street-crossing skills in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. To make use of this new platform, Schwebel created a Cardboard-compatible application that runs on a mobile phone. The user places the phone into the back of the viewer, and views the content of the application through the lenses. Students in a classroom in Changsha, China, test the Google Cardboard virtual reality training system.

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Students in a classroom in Changsha, China, test the Google Cardboard virtual reality training system.

“Children using the simulator can learn whether they’re safe or not safe, and learn those difficult skills of figuring out how fast that car is moving, how far away it is and how quickly it will get to where they are,” Schwebel said.

“And we can do all that virtually without the child’s actually being at risk of being hit by a car.”

The environment recreates the street and crosswalk in front of a local school, and it gives the user various traffic patterns to monitor from both directions. When the child decides it is safe and traffic is clear, he or she clicks the button on top of the Cardboard viewer and triggers his or her virtual self to walk across the street. The user can see him- or herself cross, so they can learn whether or not they were safe in crossing.

Though the study is not yet complete, results so far are promising in showing that the children are able to cross streets with success similar to that of adults. According to Schwebel, nearly all participants have been able to complete adult-level virtual scenarios safely, crossing a street with moderate traffic level that represents real traffic at a local crossing. Once this study is complete, Schwebel plans to continue to broaden access and availability of the training platform for domestic dissemination and use globally.

“The development of Google Cardboard allowed us to make our pedestrian simulator completely accessible,” Schwebel said. “It’s simple and affordable, and gives us hope that we can bring this tool to children worldwide. We have already conducted parallel research to train children in pedestrian safety in China, and envision a future where location-specific pedestrian environments are simulated, and training is distributed using mobile smartphones to schoolchildren worldwide.”

Families with 7- and 8-year-old children who would like to participate in the ongoing research can call the UAB Youth Safety Lab at 205-934-4068 to learn more and register to participate.

Words Under a Microscope

by Matt Windsor

DR. DANIEL MIRMAN Associate Professor

APHASIA — a loss of language abilities — “is quite common immediately after a stroke,” says Daniel Mirman, Ph.D., an associate professor who leads the Language and Cognitive Dynamics Laboratory in the UAB Department of Psychology. “Some 40 percent of patients have aphasia in the first week or two after a stroke.” In about half of those cases the aphasia resolves, but for the other half, it doesn’t, or not fully. “I’m interested in understanding why some people get better, and some don’t,” Mirman says.

YOU CAN SEE WHAT I CAN HEAR There are two broad classes of aphasia symptoms. Some patients, struggle to speak more than a few words at a time, and often use “telegraphic speech” — short bursts of nouns, with few verbs. This is called expressive aphasia, or Broca’s aphasia. Other patients are fluent speakers, but have difficulty understanding spoken and written language.

This is receptive aphasia, also known as Wernicke’s aphasia.

Mirman’s applied research with aphasia patients is part of a larger research focus on “how language is understood in the brain,” he says. Carrying on a conversation is no easy task, even for healthy brains, Mirman points out. “The typical speech rate is anywhere from 100 to 150 words per minute, and the average person has a vocabulary of about 50,000 words,” he says. “That means, in a conversation, you have to figure out which of those 50,000 words a person is saying, all the while filtering out background noise and adapting to each speaker’s accent or speech patterns. These are all very hard problems.”

To get a window into this filtering process, Mirman uses eye-tracking cameras. “How the eyes move tells you what is going on in a person’s mind at a millisecond timescale,” he says. Mirman may ask study participants to look at a computer monitor showing four pictures, and click on the one represented by a spoken word. One of the pictures will represent that object — a carrot, for example. Another picture might represent a rhyming word, such as a parrot.

The other two pictures are unrelated objects. When a person hears “carrot,” he or she will glance over at the parrot, more than the unrelated photos, Mirman says.

The same thing happens with onset competitors such as “beetle” and “beaker.” The initial “bee-“ sound divides the participant’s attention between those two pictures. When the participant hears the rest, he or she homes in on the target image.

FILTERING TALK SOUP In a 2016 paper, Mirman and colleagues reported on an eye-tracking study that found that participants with damage to Broca’s area were slower to use context to constrain the set of competitors. “We compared sentences like ‘She will peel the banana’ with sentences like ‘She will move the banana,’” Mirman says. “In the first one, as soon as you hear the word ‘peel,” you can guess that the upcoming noun will be something peel-able, like a banana. But in the ‘move’ sentence you don’t have that kind of constraint.” Typical adults — and people with aphasia who do not have damage to the frontal lobe — take advantage of the “peel” constraint to anticipate “banana,” Mirman explains, but people in the study with left frontal damage did not. “Along with several other studies, this suggests that the ‘telegraphic’ speech in Broca’s aphasia might be partly due to difficulty using context to help in selecting between different competing word options,” Mirman says.

“What made this study distinctive was that we were using a data-driven approach to describing the components of language,” Mirman says. Instead of the traditional approach, which makes a categorical distinction between expressive and receptive aphasia, “we provided a more continuous way of thinking about the level of impairment,” he adds.

Scan showing brain regions where damage is associated with longterm speech production problems and speech recognition problems.

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CONGRATULATIONS! With funding from the American Psychological Association, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Psychology will host 6 undergraduate students for paid summer research assistantships.The program, Scholarship in Child and Adolescent Health and Injury Prevention (SCAHIP), will offer research training, graduate school and career development, and opportunities to socialize with other students. A stipend will be provided for the 8-week, full-time program from June 12 - August 4. Over 150 applications were received for admission into SCAHIP with an acceptance rate of 4% for the program.

Applicants listed hometowns in 26 states and hailed from about 50 different universities across the country.

Participating Mentors Dr. Jessica Mirman | The Child and Adolescent Health Lab Dr. Sylvie Mrug | The Youth Development Lab Dr. Christina RodrĂ­guez | The Parenting Challenges with Kids Lab Dr. David Schwebel | The UAB Youth Safety Lab Dr. Despina Stavrinos | The Translational Research for Injury Prevention (TRIP) Lab

2017 SCAHIP COHORT Grace Albright, University of Alabama Hometown: Vestavia Hills, AL Celeste Fernandez, University of Texas-Dallas Hometown: Pearland, TX Isabella Canelo Gordon, Haverford College Hometown: South Salem, NY Josiah Robinson, University of Alabama at Birmingham Hometown: Sumiton, AL Lindsay Stager, University of Alabama Hometown: Oakwood, OH Alex Veerasammy, John Jay College, New York, NY Hometown: Ozone Park, NY

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UAB DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY CAMPBELL HALL SUITE 415 | 1300 UNIVERSITY BLVD. | BIRMINGHAM, AL 35294 205.934.3850

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