Psych Seminar Series

An Integrated Population Health Model: Applying Mental Health Literacy Approaches to Address Child and Youth Mental Health

Dr. Yifeng Wei
University of Alberta

This presentation will share how school-based mental health literacy and early identification approaches embedded in the school-based pathway to care model have made substantial improvements on the understanding of mental health and mental disorders, decreased stigma and enhanced help-seeking efficacy among students and educators alike in Canadian secondary schools....

Read More

Blame on You!
Understanding Victim Blaming in Cases of Interpersonal Violence

Dr. Kristine Peace
MacEwan; Department of Psychology

In public and legal domains, an increase in campaigns surrounding awareness of sexual, intimate partner, and stalking violence have identified numerous ways that victim blaming can impact case outcomes, from the decision to report to court rulings (and everything in between). While blame attributions have been firmly rooted in society for many years, the deplorable trend suggesting that victims are ‘asking for it’ or responsible for their own abuse continues....

Read More

TBD

Dr. Kristan Marchak
University of Alberta; Faculté Saint-Jean, Psychology

TBD

Dr. Janeen Loehr
University of Saskatchewan; Faculty of Psychology

TBD

Dr. Scott Semenyna
MacEwan; Department of Psychology

TBD

Dr. Shannon Digweed
MacEwan; Department of Psychology

500 ms of magic: What we can learn from the miraculous stability and flexibility of eye-hand coordination

Dr. Craig Chapman
University of Alberta

Using our eyes to guide our hand to objects we interact with in our environment is one of the most important and frequent sensorimotor tasks we perform. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s easy because you don’t have to think about it. In fact, I’d argue the opposite - this protection from cognitive meddling exists precisely because this is an ecologically critical and evolutionarily preserved behaviour. In this talk I will take you on a decade-long journey into our exploration of eye-hand coordination during object interaction... 

Read More

Into the Gray Zone: Exploring Cognition at the Margins of Consciousness

Dr. Adrian Owen
University of Western Ontario

Disorders of consciousness, including coma, the vegetative state, and the minimally conscious state, are some of the least understood and most ethically troublesome conditions in modern medicine. Decisions to withdraw care focus typically on clinical indicators predicting a poor neurological outcome...

Read More

The Transformation of Social Experiences into Adaptive Memories

Dr. Vishnu (Deepu) Murty
Temple University

Our social worlds are complex, necessitating the ability to prioritize events that will help us maintain adaptive decisions in social contexts. But how do we draw on prior experiences to help us navigate social dynamics. While a prior literature in social psychology has emphasized implicit learning systems that help guide these types of behaviors (i.e., impression formation, value-based learning), rodent and human work alike has highlighted a critical role for the hippocampus in adaptive social behaviors.

Read More