Newark Psychology students regularly present research at local, regional and national conferences. Some presentations are the result of assisting professors with their research while others are the result of a student conducting an independent research project.
*Agyepong, B. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2022, March 8). Evaluating the five facets of mindfulness to predict COVID-19 stress. The Ohio State University Newark Research Forum.
*Baral, S., *Roth, M. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2023, April). Predicting self-rated health among college students: Evaluating the impact of general stress, COVID-specific stress, and mindfulness. Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
*Barna, S. R., Buelow, M. T. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2023, August). Vasovagal symptoms following seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccination: The impact of fear. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
*Brammer, A. M., *Rardon, J. A., Hupp, J. M., & Jungers, M. K. (2021, April). That’s so nelch: The effect of prosody on memory for novel adjectives. Virtual presentation at the annual Ohio State University Denman Undergraduate Research Forum, Columbus, OH.
*Carlisle, C. J., *Sharma, K., *Rardon, J., *McDonald, S. A., Hupp, J. M., & Jungers, M. K. (2023, March). Time flies so linek: Exploring the use of prosody for adjective learning in children. Poster session presented at the annual Ohio State Newark Student Research Forum, Newark, OH.
*Clark, P., *Rardon, J., *Wince, C., Buelow, M.T., & Brunell, A. (2022, April). False personality feedback affects decision making task performance. Poster presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association conference (Chicago, IL).
*Clark, P. M., *Sheroz, M., *Doerfler, N., *Rardon, J., *Mustric, S., *Wince, C., *Clark, P., Kowalsky, J. M., Okdie, B. M. & Buelow, M. B. (April, 2022). Relationships between behavioral decision making tasks. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association conference, Chicago, IL.
*Elliott, M. B., *Friend, C. A. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2022, April 6-9). A mixed-method approach to understanding COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the U.S. Society of Behavioral Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
*Elliott, M. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2022, March 8). Understanding intentions to wear a mask. The Ohio State University Newark Research Forum.
*Faisal, S., Geffen, S., & Robinson, C.W. (2022, April). Multisensory processing with semantic congruency. Poster presented at the Annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
*Friend, C. A. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2021, April). Predicting seasonal flu vaccine intention, COVID-19 vaccine intention, and non-vaccine preventive health behaviors. Society of Behavioral Medicine, Virtual.
Geffen, S., *Faisal, S., & Robinson, C.W. (2022, July). Semantic Congruence Across Sensory Modalities. Poster presented at the Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Toronto, ON.
Heitz, H. K., *Friend, C. A., Mitchell, A. M., Okdie, B. M. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2021, April). Motivations for preventive health behavior use during the COVID-19 pandemic: For me, for you, following rules, and fear. Society of Behavioral Medicine, Virtual.
*Mills, M.A., & Robinson, C. W. (2022, March). The Influence of Facial Coverings on Speech Intelligibility. Poster presented at the Annual Undergraduate Research Forum at The Ohio State University Newark, Newark, OH.
*Mustric, S & Okdie, B. M. (2021, April). "You believe what?": Relational closeness and belief relevance predict conspiracy belief tolerance Newark Student Research Forum, Newark, OH. virtual conference due to COVID-19.
*Mustric, S. & Okdie, B. M. (March, 2022). "y r u not txting me back?" Social exclusion in mobile phone communication. Poster presented at the annual Newark Research Forum Newark, OH.
*Rardon, J., Hupp, J. M., & Jungers, M. K. (2022, March). The effect of prosody and referent animacy on novel noun learning. Poster session presented at the annual Ohio State Newark Student Research Forum, Newark, OH.
*Rardon, J., Hupp, J. M., & Jungers, M. K. (2022, April). The effect of prosody and referent animacy on novel noun learning. Psi Chi poster session presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
*Rardon, J., *McDonald, S. A., Hupp, J. M., & Jungers, M. K. (2023, April). Labeling smiling objects: The effects of prosody and animacy on novel noun learning. Psi Chi poster session presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
*Rardon, J., *Mustric, S., *Wince, C., *Clark, P., Kowalsky, J., Okdie, B., & Buelow, M.T. (2022, April). Relationships between behavioral decision making tasks. Poster presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association conference (Chicago, IL).
*Roahrig, J. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2021, April). Understanding early seasonal influenza vaccination behavior: A case-control study. Society of Behavioral Medicine, Virtual.
*Roth, M. C., *Baral, S., Goktan, A. J., Mitchell, A. M. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2023, August). Evaluating the effects of self-compassion and stress on sleep among college students. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. Division 17 Social Hour – Student Posters.
*Roth, M.C., *Hodge, C., & Robinson, C. W. (2021, April). Adapting to a Changing World: A Parents Role in Distanced Learning. Oral Presentation presented at the Annual Undergraduate Research Forum at The Ohio State University Newark, Newark, OH.
*Theis, J. (2022, March). “You’re not my people!” Ostracizing Burdensome Social Groups. Oral Presentation presented at the annual Ohio State Newark Student Research Forum, Newark, OH.
*Wince, C., *Clark, P., *Rardon, J., Kowalsky, J.M., Brunell, A.B., & Buelow, M.T. (2022, April). Predicting engagement in risky behaviors based on perceived risks and benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Poster presented at the Society for Behavioral Medicine conference (Baltimore, MD).
*Yang, M. S. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2021, April). Predicting early pandemic perceived severity of COVID-19 among college students. Society of Behavioral Medicine, Virtual.
*Yang, M. & Kowalsky, J. M. (2021, October 27-31). Body Vigilance and Fear of Catching COVID-19 among College Students: Investigating the Role of Information Processing. National Collegiate Honors Council, Orlando, FL.
Updated: 08/02/2023
Research is conducted in Newark Campus West A1100. Most of the studies you are encouraged to participate in as Psychology 1100 students will take place here. Other research is conducted outside of the lab - in natural settings, in the field, online, or even as take-home surveys.
The Psychology Lab is also available for upper-level Psychology students to use for quiet study space and for resources such as the APA manual and GRE practice tests. The lab is typically open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (hours vary each semester).
Peer research contacts are undergraduate students who are already involved in research in Psychology and are willing to share their experiences via email correspondence. The list below includes research area and lab. Please note that many students' work is interdisciplinary; if you are interested in Social Psychological research, for example, there may be useful contacts in Cognitive or Developmental Psychology.
Spring 2024
Cognitive development and clinical neuropsychology
Drs. Hupp, Jungers and Buelow
Psy 4998 credit
Thesis project
Work-Study: Paid research assistant position through federal student aid program
Psych department employee: Paid research assistant position through Ohio State Newark
Contact a professor working in an area that interests you:
My research interests lie in three main areas: 1) understanding the predictors of real-world risk-taking behaviors; 2) assessment of executive functions and other cognitive abilities; and 3) the utility and validity of psychological and neuropsychological assessment measures. I conduct research with college student samples, looking at the influence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, previous concussion/head injury, and other factors on these variables.
My research involves studying the cognitive development of preschoolers. More specifically, I investigate how the typical young child begins to understand and use different aspects of language (e.g., inflections, verbs, prosody, etc.).
My main research goal is to understand how people communicate in auditory domains. Within this theme of human communication, my research interests fall into three related categories: 1) memory for complex auditory sequences, 2) perception and production systems, and 3) language and music parallels.
As a health psychologist, I study health behavior and health promotion, with a focus on blood donation and vaccination. Used to save and improve lives, the demand for blood products is constant. Ensuring sufficient availability of safe blood is a global health concern because the blood supply typically relies on voluntary donors. As such, I study strategies to improve blood donor recruitment and retention. In addition to blood donation, I also study vaccination behavior. Although vaccines provide protection against a variety of illnesses, not everyone who is eligible gets vaccinated. This line of research seeks to understand vaccine hesitancy, evaluate message-framing strategies, identify novel predictors of vaccination behavior, and improve the vaccination experience.
My research focuses on how individuals interact with one another online (e.g., Facebook, texting, blogging). Specifically, I focus on how relationships start, are maintained, and end in online environments.
From learning a language to riding a bike, most of our experiences are multisensory in nature. The fact that the brain can integrate information from different sensory modalities into a coherent and unitary experience is truly amazing given that each modality simultaneously receives qualitatively different types of input (e.g., photons, molecules, pressure, etc.) and this information is processed by dedicated sensory systems. My program of research examines how infants, children, and adults process and integrate multisensory information and how this ability sub-serves various cognitive tasks such as statistical learning, categorization, word learning, and individuation.
I investigate group processes, especially those associated with being ostracized (excluded and ignored). I study the extent of ostracism’s impact on social pain, basic human needs, mood, and aggression. As part of this research, I examine whether individual differences and situational factors can moderate ostracism’s immediate and delayed effects. I also investigate why individuals ostracize others. Using a variety of manipulations, I found that the likelihood an individual will be ostracized increases as the individual is perceived as more burdensome to the group. The burdensome group member is the group member most likely to be kicked out of the group. Across this research, I incorporate intergroup relations, personality, non-verbal communication, and novel, group-based research paradigms.