Category: Psychology

Zombies Are Coming to Michigan Tech!

They grace the covers of magazines. They star in a hit television series. And, they are featured in a popular new game on campus. Although from the world of the undead, zombies have certainly been enjoying their new star status. Now, there’s another venue to celebrate them—“Undead U: A Zombie Symposium,” set for 7-9 p.m., Friday, Nov. 1, on the campus of Michigan Technological University.

Presenter Adam Feltz, of Michigan Tech’s cognitive and learning sciences department, will combine psychology and philosophy in an analysis of why zombies are so appealing.

Read more at Michigan Tech News, by Dennis Walikainen.

A night for the living dead
Michigan Tech holds ‘Zombie U’ symposium

Adam Feltz from the department of cognitive and learning sciences at Michigan Tech led the symposium with an analysis of why we are so fascinated with zombies. To answer that question, Feltz looked to existing theories first. Those theories include the Stephen King theory, which poses the idea that our fascination with zombies reflects modern consumerism, and the war and atrocity theory, in which we like zombies more during times of hardship. Feltz dismissed those theories by simply tracking zombie movies made during those times and finding either no relationship or an inverse relationship with those trends.

So he went on to survey over 150 people and try to find common indicators that would predict who would like zombies. He found that people who like zombies are more likely to be male, to be young, to be less educated and to be liberal. But, of course, many people outside of those parameters also enjoy zombies.

“Why do we like zombies? It’s complicated because there is no ‘we.’ There are some people who like zombies and some people who don’t like zombies,” Feltz said.

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Meagan Stilp.

Undead U

Michigan Tech staff included in the talk will be Syd Johnson and Ketty Thomas of the Humanities and Adam Feltz of the Cognitive and Learning Sciences. From the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Department of Biology comes the special guest speaker, John Dahl.

Read more at the Michigan Tech Lode, by Sarah Harttung.

Adam Feltz, PhD

Adam Feltz joins the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences as assistant professor. He comes to Michigan Tech from Schreiner University, where he was an assistant professor.

Feltz received his PhD in Philosophy from Florida State University, as well as a MS in Philosophy from Northern Illinois University and a BS in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina.

Feltz is a member of the Cognitive Science Society, Society of Judgment and Decision Making, and the American Philosophical Association. He published in Consciousness and Cognition, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and the American Journal of Bioethics. His areas of specialization for research and teaching are philosophy of mind, applied ethics, and psychology of philosophical judgment and intuition.

Kelly Steelman, PhD

Kelly Steelman joins the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences as assistant professor. She comes to Michigan Tech from Flinders University, where she was an honors thesis co-advisor and postdoctoral researcher.

Steelman received her PhD in Psychology and MS in Human Factors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also received a MEng in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Her research interests are basic and applied attention, models of attention, human performance in aviation, instructional design and display design. She has been published in Human Factors and Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

Read more at Tech Today.

Katrina Ellis is a Fall 2013 recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences recognizing her teaching performance. The department nominated her for this award. A certificate of recognition for this award will be presented at the Graduate Research Colloquium Banquet that is held in the spring.

Ellis is a PhD student in Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors. Her advisor is Edward Cokely.

Assistant Professor Adam Feltz (CLS) and Associate Professor Edward Cokely (CLS) have published a new paper entitled Predicting Philosophical Disagreement in the journal Philosophy Compass.

From Tech Today.

Assistant Professor, Myounghoon “Philart” Jeon (CLS) and his students presented two projects at the 57th International Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2013), San Diego, Sept. 30 through Oct. 4. The projects were “Sadder but wiser? Effects of negative emotions on risk perception, driving performance, and perceived workload,” and “Increasing physical therapy patient compliance and satisfaction with web-based applications.”

From Tech Today.

Spring 2013 4.00
Grew, Kristin* JR SPSY
Lehman, William E* SR SPSY
Nelson, Bradley D* SR SPSY
Nigro, Elizabeth A* SR SPSY
Veach, Emma G* SR SPSY

Spring 2013 3.99-3.50
Anderson, Krista M SR
Beirne, Jolene A JR SPSY
Cherubini-Sutinen, Alysa R SR SPSY
Deane, Katrina E SR SPSY
Franchock, Rachel M SR SPSY
Jones, Taylor E SO SPSY
Kemppainen, Marshall T SO SPSY
Mason, Jacob J JR SPSY
Mauer, Tessa K SR SPSY
Mayra, Kerri B SR SPSY
Neubauer Lieburn, Robin M SR SPSY
Shull, Catherine E SO SPSY
Westphal, Abbey M SR SPSY

Edward Cokely’s (CLS) paper “Communicating Health Risks with Visual Aids” has been published in the journal “Current Directions in Psychological Science.”

From Tech Today.

Edward Cokely’s (CLS) paper titled “The Influence of Skills, Message Frame, and Visual Aids on the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases” has been published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

From Tech Today.

A paper by Edward Cokely (CLS) titled “Simple But Powerful Health Messages for Increasing Condom Use in Young Adults” has been published in the Journal of Sex Research.

Assistant Professor, Myounghoon “Philart” Jeon (CLS) and his colleagues presented three projects at the 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII2013), Las Vegas, Nevada, July 21-26, 2013.

Jeon, M., and Lee, J-H. “The ecological AUI (Auditory User Interface) design and evaluation of user acceptance for various tasks on smartphones.”

Jeon, M. “Lyricons (Lyrics + Earcons): Designing a new auditory cue combining speech and sounds.”

Jeon, M., Winton, R. J., Henry, G. A., Oh, S., Bruce, C. M., and Walker, B. N. “Designing interactive sonification for live aquarium exhibits.” This third paper has won the Best Poster Award among 303 posters.

HCI International Conference accommodates more than 3,500 participants from all around the world.

From Tech Today.