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The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist Division 6 — American Psychological Association Volume 22• Number 3 • Fall, 2007

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The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist Division 6 — American Psychological Association Volume 22• Number 3 • Fall, 2007 The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist Division 6 — American Psychological Association Volume 22• Number 3 • Fall, 2007 Editor Eric P. Wiertelak, Macalester College Reflections on 2007, In This Issue A Message from the President 1-5 --William Timberlake Goals and Plans for 2008 Report on Council 5-6 --Bruce Overmier A Membership Committee Report 7 Facilitating --Aaron Blaisdell Communication and Meet New Division 6 Fellows 8-9 Continuity : History of Division 6: Presidential Addresses 10-12 A Message from the --Donald Dewsbury President President-Elect Candidates William Timberlake Address Division 6 13-14 In looking through the newslet- Division 6 2007 Award Winners 14-15 ter columns of recent presidents (ar- Announcements 15-20 chived on the Division 6 web site), I To Irene Pepperberg 21 noticed the topics addressed fell into four rough categories: (1) History (personal and/or related to the field); (2) Appreciation for Contributions of members; 3) Current Goals; and (4) Topics in Science. My first column is DIVISION 6 EMAIL served cafeteria style, a sprinkle of each. REFLECTOR A (Highly) Selective History of Division 6 Division 6 maintains an email reflector to keep members up to date with the latest information Division 6, like an increasing number of its members, is in its six- on research funding, employment opportunities, and other items of general interest. If you have ties, but its pathway to the age of realization has been circuitous. Three recently changed your email address, you may years after its 1945 founding, the division was granted its official name, need to re-subscribe to the reflector. To update Physiological and Comparative Psychology. But, a year later, its “par- your current address or to join the list for the first time, follow these simple instructions: ents” apparently reconsidered is status, and sent the toddler off to be raised as part of Division 3 (Experimental Psychology). Not until 1962, Send precisely the following 4-word message: SUBSCRIBE DIV6 John Doe at the age of 17, did Division 6 request and receive its “birth” name back. Change John Doe to your first and last name; the Finally, in its early fifties, Division 6 modernized by trading in the “phys- computer will find the subscriber’s email address iological psychology” part of its name for “Behavioral Neuroscience.” in the message automatically. Put nothing in the Regardless of what Division 6 has been named, many of its mem- subject line, and nothing else in the message. Mail the 4-word message to the folowing address: bers have focused on issues of central importance in basic and applied [email protected] science: (1) the fecundity and limitations of evolution in producing body More info about APA listservs can be found at: plans, neural and hormonal integration, and both simple and outlandish http://www.apa.org/apags/members/listserv.html sensory and cognitive processing and motor (continued on page 2) Page 1 Division Officers and The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist is the official news- Committees 2007-2008 letter of APA Division 6 — Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology President: William D. Timberlake — and is published 3 times a year. Mailing addresses used are those appearing on the Indiana University official APA roster and a separate Division roster. Corrections and changes of address [email protected] should be sent directly to the APA Directory Office, 1400 North Uhle St., Arlington, VA 22201, and to the Editor (see below). Past-President: Karen Hollis As the official newsletter of Division 6, BNCP publishes official business, commit- Mount Holyoke College tee reports, news items, job announcements, information on technical issues, topics [email protected] of current interest, and information about the professional activities of Division 6 President-Elect: Nancy Dess members. News items and articles should be submitted to the Editor at the address Occidental College below (preferably by email). Paid advertisements are not officially endorsed by Divi- [email protected] sion 6. The Editor welcomes comments and suggestions for ways in which BNCP can better serve the needs of the members. The preferred method of submission is Secretary/Treasurer: Chana Akins by email. Send correspondence and submissions to Eric P. Wiertelak via e-mail at University of Kentucky [email protected]. Postal mail should be sent to Eric P. Wiertelak, Department [email protected] of Psychology, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN 55105. Other contact information: Council Representative: Bruce Overmier Phone: (651) 696-6111; FAX: (651) 696-6348. University of Minnesota [email protected] Member-at-Large: Robert Cook (Message, continued from page 1) mechanisms; (2) the complexity of the Tufts University pervasive interaction of genetics, environment, developmental processes, [email protected] learning, and cognition to produce individual and social behavior; and (3) Member-at-Large: Lisa Savage the divergence, convergence, success and extinction of species as a result Binghamton University of the adaptive and maladaptive expression of particular behaviors by [email protected] particular organisms in specific environments. Student Representative: Andrea Gillman In terms of species, individuals in Division 6 have been interested Indiana University in four-footed, two-footed, and “no-footed” vertebrates, as well as a [email protected] restricted, but interesting, assortment of invertebrates. To briefly high- Early Career Representative: light invertebrates, I’d like to share my favorite section of Karl Lashley’s Kim Christian presidential address to the APA in 1938. Lashley spent several sentences National Institute of Mental Health [email protected] describing the remarkable behavior displayed by Microstoma (a middling relative of planaria and liver flukes) in defending itself against predation. Newsletter Editor: Eric P. Wiertelak He began by noting its voracious appetite for hydra (another invertebrate) Macalester College [email protected] combined with specialized mechanisms for locating a hydra’s defensive stinging cells (probably something like searching for contact triggered Division Historian/ Archivist: landmines in the dark) and then distributing these nematocysts evenly Donald A. Dewsbury University of Florida (and gingerly, one might suppose) across the surface area of its body. [email protected]fl.edu Each of the cells is carefully aimed outward to discharge toward any ani- mal disturbing Microstoma. Lashley commented, “Here, in the length of Committee Chairs half a millimeter, are encompassed all of the major problems of dynamic Awards Committee: Peter Balsam psychology…a specific drive or appetite, satisfied only by a very indirect Columbia University series of activities.” He continued, ”…the naturalistic literature con- [email protected] tains many such descriptions made by careful and accurate observers of Fellows Nominations: Jeff Alberts instinctive behavior so complex and precise in its execution that we can Indiana University only stand aghast at the inadequacy (continued on page 3) [email protected] Membership & Growth: Rick Bevins University of Nebraska-Lincoln BNCP back issues are available online at [email protected] http://www.apa.org/divisions/div6/newsletter.html Program Committee: Christina Williams Duke University [email protected] Page 2 (Message, continued from page 2) functioning as multi-cellular organ- important support and lobbying for isms. Naturalists and philosophers researchers, research funding, and of our concepts of its precision.” have long drawn parallels between the importance of science. APA An important addition to the multi-cellular organisms, and multi- both supports budget requests in use of naturally occurring species individual groups, such as those congressional committees and has been the recognition and cre- formed by social insects, mamma- floor votes, and stands with par- ation of animal models. Because lian herds, and primate societies. ticular researchers who have been members of Division 6 typically There are certainly questions about targeted by the staff of congress- view animal species (including hu- the extent to which such paral- men hoping for profitable theatre mans) as examples of the processes lels between individual animals in for their home district. APA also of gene- and environment-based social groups and individual cells funds, through its Science Direc- evolution, adaptation, development, within a single animal are accurate torate, special research meetings, and learning, and because members and useful. But it seems clear that and CARE (Committee on Animal are interested in the processing of both the cells of a body and the Research Ethics). I am convinced stimuli and how behavior is formed basis of interactions of individual that such support for research with and controlled, most find it a small organisms have been selected for animals is necessary if we are to step to support the investigation of social ends. In the case of our own continue to profit from insights into both naturally-occurring and geneti- society of body cells consider that specific evolutionary and ecologi- cally-engineered animals as models under slightly atypical circum- cal adaptations of different spe- for exploring developmental pro- stances, the reactions of these small cies, and from the contribution of cesses, diseases, neurophysiology citizens can facilitate a cascade of animals as models of genetic and and behavioral analyses of learning
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