Shelia Kennison

Verified

Shelia verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Shelia verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• Ph.D. (UMass, Amherst)
• Professor at Oklahoma State University

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the topic of language development, taking a perspective that covers the period before birth through old age. There are between 4,000 and 6,000 languages remaining in the world. The characteristics of these languages vary widely. An infant born today could master any language in the world, regardles...

The research investigated the relationships among cursing, risk-taking (i.e., drinking, smoking, using illegal drugs, and engaging in risky sexual behavior), and personality variables that have been shown to be related to risk-taking (i.e., sensation-seeking and Big-Five personality factors). In a study with 360 participants, the results showed tha...

The research investigated how readers comprehended reflexive pronoun anaphors (e.g., himself or herself) that occurred in the same sentence with an antecedent that was modified by a genitive NP. Prior research suggested that during the search for an antecedent, readers consider only those preceding discourse entities that are prominent in the disco...

The present research investigated analogical transfer during problem solving by bilinguals. In a study with 50 Spanish-English bilinguals, participants solved a target problem, whose solution was similar to that of a preceding source problem. The source problem was always presented in the second language (L2); the target problem was always presente...

Since their invention in 1999, Emojis have become part of most people’s digital communication. Emojis have become part of most people’s digital communication. Increasingly, companies are mining the contents of social media posts to estimate information about social media users’ characteristics. The present research investigated relationships among...

Since their invention in 1999, Emojis have become part of most people’s digital communication. Of the few studies that have been conducted investigating how emojis are used on social media platforms and in text messages, multiple studies have documented individual differences in emoji use related to age, gender, and Big Five personality traits. Wom...

Objective: We examined marijuana use by college students in Oklahoma and how use related to personality traits and protective factors of resilience. Participants: The sample included 116 undergraduates who reported using marijuana multiple times in the past year. Method: Participants completed questions about marijuana use, personality traits, and...

We examined medication nonadherence among college students with chronic illnesses. We hypothesized that medication non-adherence is a form of risk-taking and would be related to variables that have been shown to be associated with risk-taking (e.g., personality traits and relationships with parents in childhood). The sample included 151 undergradua...

Sensation seeking is the pursuit of varied, novel, and complex experiences and has been the subject of many studies since the 1950s. Research has demonstrated sensation seeking traits are related to risk-taking, including use and abuse of substances as well as physical risk-taking such as participation in extreme sports. Researchers have developed...

Sensation seeking is the pursuit of varied, novel, and complex experiences and has been the subject of many studies since the 1950s. Research has demonstrated sensation seeking traits are related to risk-taking, including use and abuse of substances as well as physical risk-taking such as participation in extreme sports. Researchers have developed...

Prior research has demonstrated relationships between personality traits of social media users and the language used in their posts. Few studies have examined whether there are relationships between personality traits of users and how they use emojis in their social media posts. Emojis are digital pictographs used to express ideas and emotions. The...

We tested the hypothesis that individuals experiencing more fatigue, stemming from poor sleep quality, would use humor and curse words more often, as these forms of arousing language may counteract fatigue. Prior research has shown that during laughing, arousal increases through the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Other research showe...

This paper focuses on the design of a mixed reality-based (MR) simulation environment to train health care personnel in reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) procedure. Information-centric models involving interaction with orthopedic surgeons were created as part of a participatory design approach. These information models provided a structura...

Prior research has demonstrated relationships between personality traits of social media users and the language used in their posts. Few studies have examined whether there are relationships between personality traits of users and how they use emojis in their social media posts. Emojis are digital pictographs used to express ideas and emotions. The...

We tested the hypothesis that individuals experiencing more fatigue, stemming from poor sleep quality, would use humor and curse words more often, as these forms of arousing language may counteract fatigue. Different lines of prior research have during laughing arousal increase though the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and processing...

Resilience researchers have shown that positive relationships function as protective factors, offsetting the negative effects of adverse life experiences. Relationships with parents may be among the most important protective factors of resilience in the development of children. Few studies have examined the extent to which childhood relationships w...

Background & aims Echolalia, the repetition of one's or others’ utterances, is a behavior present in typical development, autism spectrum disorder, aphasias, Tourette's, and other clinical groups. Despite the broad range of conditions in which echolalia can occur, it is considered primarily through a disorder-specific lens, which limits a full unde...

This article provides a systematic review of research related to Human–Computer Interaction techniques supporting training and learning in various domains including medicine, healthcare, and engineering. The focus is on HCI techniques involving Extended Reality (XR) technology which encompasses Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality....

Prior research has shown that more resilient individuals report higher levels of happiness. Other research also shows that those who use positive humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing and affiliative) more often and use negative humor styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) less often report higher levels of happiness. Resilience research has cha...

In this paper, HCI-based design criteria focusing on managing the cognitive load of users during their interaction with Virtual Reality (VR) based training environments are presented. The design criteria explored in the paper help lay a foundation for the creation of Human Centric VR environments to train users in two healthcare domains. The first...

Prior research has examined whether person-specific characteristics, such as personality traits, can be identified through analysis of social media posts (e.g., blogs, Facebook, and Twitter). Few studies have examined the extent to which risk-taking propensity can be predicted using language used on social media. The present research examined how w...

People have many accounts and usually need to create a password for each. They tend to create insecure passwords and re-use passwords, which can lead to compromised data. This research examines if there is a link between personality type and password security among a variety of participants in two groups of participants: SONA and MTurk. Each partic...

The current study investigates the influence of L2 English learners’ belief about their interlocutor’s English proficiency on phonetic accommodation and explores whether interaction-induced phonetic convergence could improve L2 English learners’ vowel pronunciation. Results from two experiments show that when the subjects believed that their interl...

Using weak passwords and re-using passwords can make one vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches. Cybersecurity experts recommend the adoption of password managers (PMs), as they generate and store strong passwords for all accounts. Prior research has shown that few people adopt PMs. Our research examined PM adoption in a sample of 221 undergraduates...

This research investigated the suggestion from prior research that language and emojis use on Twitter can predict users’ personality and gender. We analyzed tweets from 74 accounts belonging to undergraduates (22 men, 52 women) using Word usage was analyzed using Pennebaker et al.’s (2007) LIWC. In a survey, participants completed a measure for big...

Cybersecurity breaches can occur when one uses an easily hacked password. We investigated whether personality-based nudging messages could nudge people to create stronger passwords. We modeled our study on prior research in which personality-based messages led to health-related behavior change. Research testing the effectiveness of nudges on passwo...

Contrast the behaviorist, nativist, and statistical learning views of how children acquire language.  Explain whether projects focused on teaching non-human animals ASL and other human-like communication systems support the view that language is a special human ability with biological origins.  Understand how the brain is involved in controlling...

The chapter is the first in a textbook on cognitive science, which is in preparation. Feedback is welcome.

The use of strong passwords is viewed as a recommended cybersecurity practice, as the hacking of weak passwords led to major cybersecurity breaches. The present research investigated whether nudging with messages based on participants’ self-schemas could lead them to create stronger passwords. We modeled our study on prior health-related research d...

Prior research has shown that more resilient individuals report higher levels of happiness. Other research also shows that those who use positive humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing and affiliative) more often and use negative humor styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) less often report higher levels of happiness. Resilience research has cha...

Objective Parenting behaviors in early development are associated with risk-taking behaviors in emerging adulthood. Risky behaviors are also shown to be associated with cortisol response to stressors. This study examined the moderating effect of neuroendocrine response to stressors on the link between parenting behaviors in early development and ri...

People often create passwords for their accounts that are insecure. An insecure password is often easy to guess– thus, hackers can easily access their victims’ accounts. It is important for users to know how to create and manage secure passwords so they can better protect themselves from hackers. It is well-known that different users have different...

This research investigated the relationships among symptoms associated with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), perceived stress, and resilience in college students. In our study of 558 college students (175 men, 383 women), we confirmed the hypothesis that the relationship between ADHD symptoms and perceived stress is mediated by prot...

The use of strong passwords is viewed as a recommended cybersecurity practice, as the hacking of weak passwords led to major cybersecurity breaches. The present research investigated whether nudging with messages based on participants’ self-schemas could lead them to create stronger passwords. We modeled our study on prior health-related research d...

There is a large literature on the cognitive neuroscience on humor processing (See Kennison, 2020 for review). The presentation will provide an overview of the cutting-edge brain imaging research documenting what brain activity during humor processing. Research studies employ a variety of methodologies, including case studies of individuals with br...

Participants. There were 233 participants (168 female, 66 men, 1 did not to specify) ranging in age from 19 to 75 years (mean = 23.14 yrs, SD = 10.27 yrs). Sixty-nine reported having no musical training. 90 reported having 1-to-8 years of musical training, 54 had 9-to-12 years, 13 had 13-to-19 years, 8 had 20+ years, and 2 preferred not to respond....

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a popular method of collecting survey data in psychology. The quality of MTurk data has been questioned, because data may be provided by bots or by individuals using technology to get around location restrictions and restrictions on multiple responding. In the present research, we aimed to identify best practices for dis...

The use of weak passwords has been a factor in cybersecurity breaches around the world. Our research investigated whether individual differences in personality traits are related to password-related behaviors and whether personality-based cybersecurity messages could influence participants’ password characteristics. We modeled our study on prior he...

Individuals’ use of insecure cybersecurity behaviors, including the use of weak passwords, is a leading contributor to cybersecurity breaches. While training individuals on best practices in cybersecurity continues to be implemented, prior research has found that training people in the use of secure passwords has not proven to be effective. Develop...

Resilience researchers have shown that positive relationships function as protective factors, offsetting the negative effects of adverse life experiences. Relationships with parents may be among the most important protective factors of resilience in the development of children. Few studies have examined the extent to which childhood relationships w...

div>Adversity is a pervasive feature of human life, often contributing to poor physical and mental health outcomes. While social support can buffer against the negative consequences associated with stressful life events, the conditions under which people seek to establish potentially protective social ties with others in times of distress require...

div>Adversity is a pervasive feature of human life, often contributing to poor physical and mental health outcomes. While social support can buffer against the negative consequences associated with stressful life events, the conditions under which people seek to establish potentially protective social ties with others in times of distress require...

This presentation provides an overview of how students can make their first academic curriculum vitae (CV).

Separate lines of research have shown that a) relationships with parents in early life influence attachment and b) there is a relationship between attachment and levels of ageism in adulthood. We tested the hypothesis that parent-child relationships during childhood would be related to ageism in young adults either directly or mediated by attachmen...

The goal of this book is to provide an overview of the growing research on the cognitive and neural processes involved in humor. The book has been written for those with a background in psychology with some knowledge of the organization and functioning of the brain. https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/cognitive-neuroscience-humor

Accepted in Journal of College Counseling The research investigated the relationships among symptoms associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), stress, and resilience in college students. In our study with 558 college students (175 males, 383 females), we confirmed the hypothesis that the relationship between ADHD symptoms an...

The nature of semantic representations of plural nouns has been a subject of debates in the literature. The present research investigated the extent to which there are differences in the processing of plural versus single noun descriptions (e.g., the large chairs vs. the large chair). In two reading experiments, we tested whether plural (versus sin...

Individuals’ use of insecure cybersecurity behaviors, including the use of weak passwords, is a leading contributor to cybersecurity breaches. While training individuals on best practices in cybersecurity continues to be implemented, prior research has found that training people in the use of secure passwords has not proven to be effective. Develop...

This study examines psycholinguistic structure of autobiographical and traumatic narratives representing positive emotional and stressful traumatic life events. The research applied the cross sectional, between subjects design utilizing the independent variables of external agent they, space and time and dependent variable of word number in traumat...

The present study was designed to understand how differences in parenting styles between single mothers and single fathers influenced the factors related to child risk-taking behaviors. The results showed that mothers’ higher level of authoritarian parenting style was related to higher levels of risk-taking for both daughters and sons. In contrast,...

The research investigated the view that using humor can be a form of social risk-taking, as the attempt at humor may not always be viewed positively by others. Prior research has shown that individuals’ levels of sensation-seeking, a personality variable related to risk-taking, was related to humor appreciation. Other research has shown that sensat...

The Psychology of Language delivers a broad coverage of topics in psychology, cognition and linguistics, using the most up-to-date examples of research, theoretical perspectives and examples of languages spoken around the world, to provide the reader with an introductory text to the field of psycholinguistics. If you are considering this book for...

This study examines psycholinguistic structure of autobiographical and traumatic narratives representing positive emotional and stressful traumatic life events. The research applied the cross sectional, between subjects design utilizing the independent variables of external agent they, space and time and dependent variable of word number in traumat...

Discovering Yourself in Psychology is a work in progress. It is a free textbook suitable to introduce readers to psychology, the academic discipline. Chapter 2 discusses methods used in psychology research.