FALL 2007 D E P A R T M E N T O F P SYCHO L OGY | UNIVERSITY O F Ill I N O I S A T U R B A N A - C H A MP A I G N FOCUS ON RESEA R CH The Legacy of Early Experience: Prospective and Psychological Retrospective Evidence for Enduring Effects Models of Language By Glenn I. Roisman Comprehension By Kara Federmeier One of the more Ironically, debates about the developmental controversial claims significance of early experience have, until Human brains are storehouses for vast in developmental recently, taken place in the relative absence amounts of information about things, psychology is that of much data from long-term, longitudinal people, places, and events. Remarkably, in early experiences studies, tracking cohorts of children from only hundreds of milliseconds the brain with caregivers leave infancy to maturity, that have used state- of an experienced language user can an enduring mark on of-the-art methods for studying the quality retrieve information from this storehouse in human development. of interpersonal relationships in the early response to a complex, often ambiguous, Although this is a very old idea, formalized in life course. Fortunately for me, it was as a perceptual signal—that is, a visual or theories that date back to the beginnings of graduate research assistant on one of the auditory word. Research conducted in the psychological science, no strong consensus few such investigations—Alan Sroufe, Byron University of Illinois Cognition and Brain has been built within the field or in society Egeland, and Andy at large about this issue. For example, some Collins’s Minnesota scholars have claimed that any effects of early longitudinal study— experience are transient—that is, they are that I got my start gradually erased over time by subsequent life as an interpersonal events (see, for example, high-profile books relationships researcher. by Judith Rich Harris, Jerome Kagan, and After publishing a series Michael Lewis). Others, meanwhile, strongly of papers based on this identify with the notion that early experience study, demonstrating, may be uniquely important, a sentiment among other things, that has provided a foundation for a multi- that infant attachment billion dollar “first three years” industry that security predicts the has given rise not only to unprecedented observed quality of educational opportunities for parents to learn young adults’ romantic An infant’s early relationship experience with a caregiver predicts the observed quality of his or her young adult romantic relationships. about normative development but also CDs, relationships, I became Lab aims to uncover the psychological and DVDs, and other products—many of dubious convinced that early experiences might biological mechanisms that make such value—designed to jump start babies’ indeed have lasting consequences. rapid appreciation of meaning possible. To cognitive and social development. (continued on page 4) do this, we look at behavioral responses in conjunction with eye movement patterns and (continued on page 5) 2 university of illinois at urbana-champaign Psychology Times | Department of Psychology 3 In This Issue From the Department Head Preparing Students for the Future My first year as head of the Department of Psychology page 7 has gone by very quickly. I am grateful to the many Faculty and Student Awards page 10 dedicated faculty, staff, and students who made it a fun Faculty News and rewarding year. It is a great honor to be head of this page 13 excellent and congenial department and I have found Alumni News page 15 the experience to be both stimulating and rewarding. The field of psychology has changed a great deal since most of us were in school. Our department now consists of eight different areas or divisions: Biological, Brain and Cognition, Clinical/Community, Cognitive, Developmental, Quantitative, Social-Personality-Organizational, and Visual Cognition and Human Performance. Students and faculty members in these divisions study the mind and behavior at various levels of analysis— from individual neurons, to individual brains, to individual people, to groups, to institutions. In terms of size, we are one of the largest departments on campus with approximately 60 tenure-stream faculty members, nearly 200 graduate students, and approximately 1,300 undergraduate majors. We teach over 50,000 student credit hours each year, and we do it well—80 percent of our teaching ratings are PSYCHOLOGY TImeS Psychology Times is a publication of the above the midpoint of our five-point rating scale. We also excel in the research University of Illinois Department of Psychology produced by the College of Liberal domain. Approximately 90 percent of our faculty have external funding, and Arts and Sciences Office of Communications last year psychology faculty members received over $6 million in grant funds. It and Marketing (06.099). Photos by Creative Images Photography, Dr. Kara Federmeier, Illini is little wonder that the department is consistently ranked among the top five Studio, Komorita family, Jessica Lyles, McGrath psychology departments in the country. family, Thompson-McClellan Photography, Inc., and Harry Zanotti. Suggestions for future Befitting our high rank, many faculty members and students won prestigious issues should be directed to: awards in the last year. In this newsletter you will learn more about some Cheryl Berger, editor Department of Psychology of these remarkable people, as well as staff members and alumni who are University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 603 E. Daniel St. distinguishing themselves in their work on campus and across the country. I Champaign, IL 61820 Phone: (217) 333-3429 hope that reading about their accomplishments and their work will make you as Fax: (217) 244-5876 For more information on the department, visit proud to be associated with this department as I am. our website at: www.psych.uiuc.edu David E. Irwin Professor and Head 2 university of illinois at urbana-champaign Psychology Times | Department of Psychology 3 Gene X Environment Interactions in Mental Health Avshalom Caspi, a recognized leader in the field of developmental psychology, is a professor of psychology E-Risk Research and the Future at the University of Wisconsin, where he co-directs the Developmental Program on Personality and Psychopathology. He also holds a concurrent appointment in the Social, Genetic, and Developmental To determine whether the risk factor is truly Psychiatry Research Centre which is affiliated with the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College in London. an environmental cause, researchers have Caspi focuses his research in three areas: (1) the origins, continuity, and change of individual differences in conducted randomized treatment trials, both normal and abnormal psychological traits; (2) social inequalities and mental health; and (3) how and natural experiments, and twin and adoption why personality differences shape health-risk behaviors. designs with genetic controls. Caspi and make its way into the nervous system Moffit, for example, explored the latter option and alter its elements, to generate when they conducted an e-risk longitudinal the symptoms of a disordered mind? study with 1,116 families with twins who According to Caspi, there is were born between 1994-95 in England and emerging evidence of GxE in Wales. The twins were followed over the first psychiatric conditions. Behavioral decade of life. One of the issues studied was scientists know a lot about what whether the experience of being maltreated environmental risks (e-risks) are was influenced by a child’s genes.T he results connected with psychiatric disorders. that were found for environmental mediation The pool of e-risk candidates included: includes antisocial disorders, • A child’s risk of maltreatment was not depression, and the schizophrenia influenced by the child’s genes spectrum. Caspi contends that these risks should also be extended to • Controlling for the child’s prior level of symptoms, maltreatment experience psychosocial, perinatal, infectious, was followed by an increase in new and toxic pathogens. He looks conduct disorder symptoms for three criteria when selecting • After controlling for both parents’ candidate environmental risks for the Avshalom Caspi was the featured speaker at the Department of antisocial behavior, maltreatment still Psychology’s Lanier Lecture on September 11, 2006. The Lanier Lecture GxE hypotheses: predicted conduct disorder significantly highlights the research of a distinguished psychologist whose work is (Jaffee et al., 2004, Journal of Abnormal of interest to the general campus community. • Marked variability of response Psychology) among people exposed to the Avshalom Caspi thought it was fitting that environmental risk he was delivering a lecture about gene- • Evidence that the putative risk is a true “GxE is well recognized in agricultural environment interactions on the campus environmental pathogen having causal research but only recently have that is home to the Morrow Plots, the oldest effects mental health researchers begun to continually used experimental fields in the • A plausible effect of the environmental grapple empirically with GxE. GxE has United States. After all, the gene-environment risk on biological systems involved in already been reported and replicated interaction (i.e., GxE) is well recognized in the disorder in other branches of medicine. agricultural research. For example, dietary fat intake is It is only recently, however, that mental Examples of e-risk research conducted by associated with high triglycerides health researchers have begun to grapple Caspi’s team includes: male conduct disorder when subjects were the carriers of empirically with GxE, which occurs when and how child maltreatment interacts the APOA5 genotype, and heavy an environmental pathogen (e.g., poor with genotype; adult depression and how tobacco smokers developed gum diet, pollution, life stress) has an effect on life stress interacts with genotype; and disease, indexed by the number of health (dependent on genotype). What schizophrenia spectrum disorder and how remaining teeth, when the subjects has taken so long, and what does future cannabis use interacts with genotype.