Hello
Thank you for your interest in the Psychology graduate program at
New Mexico State University. As you will see in the information
presented below, we are a successful and unique department in many
ways.
Our department is large enough to offer exciting opportunities and
rigorous training in psychological research and small enough to
provide each student with a great deal of one-on-one attention. We
embody three general areas of scholarship - cognitive, engineering,
and social psychology - with many faculty and students engaging in
interdisciplinary and applied research. Most faculty advisors in the
psychology department have three or four advisees at a time, totaling
approximately 50 students across the department, which has been the norm over the past decade.
New Mexico State University is the land-grant university of the state of New Mexico. As a landgrant institution, NMSU focuses on high-quality research that addresses both basic mechanisms
and applications to real-world problems. In addition, NMSU has the largest minority enrollment
of any Doctoral/Research University-Extensive at 49% minority students, which makes NMSU
eligible for grant funding specifically designated for minority-serving and Hispanic-serving
institutions.
Faculty members in the Psychology Department regularly publish in leading peer-reviewed
journals such as Psychological Review; the Journals of Experimental Psychology; Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin; Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics; Memory & Cognition;
and Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Faculty members and graduate students also present
ongoing research at national and international conferences such as the annual meetings of the
Psychonomic Society, the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, the Vision Sciences
Society, and the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society. See below for a list of recent and
representative publications by our faculty members, as well as email addresses and links to their
web pages.
The faculty and staff at NMSU are friendly and dedicated to student learning and mentoring. For
example, the majority of faculty publications are collaborations with current or past graduate
students, and students are often funded by faculty grants. In addition, all incoming students
participate in the First-Year Scholars workshop, meeting as a group once a week with the chair
of the Graduate Program Committee to discuss time management, improve writing skills, and
practice oral presentations.
The Graduate School offers numerous financial aid options, including cash awards and
assistantships (see this link for more information). The majority of our M.A. and Ph.D. students
are funded at some level, with many receiving full funding throughout their time in the program.
Students have a variety of opportunities to develop
their teaching skills. The Psychology Department
offers a dedicated graduate course in the Teaching
of Psychology. Additionally, the NMSU Teaching
Academy offers dozens of free short workshops
each academic year for faculty, staff, and graduate
students. Doctoral students who have completed
one of several preparatory programs have numerous
paid opportunities to teach undergraduate courses
for the Psychology Department. The majority of our
doctoral students graduate with more teaching experience than their peers at other institutions.
The weather in southern New Mexico is pleasant year round. Las Cruces averages 350 days of
sunshine every year, which allows residents to participate in a wide range of outdoor activities.
In addition, there are numerous artistic and cultural events throughout the year. The cost of living
in Las Cruces is also low and the mild weather allows many students to commute on foot or
bicycle.
The graduate program offers on-campus M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The M.A. degree is in general
experimental psychology. The program is designed to provide graduates with the tools and
knowledge necessary for further training at the doctoral level or for employment in industry,
government, or community college teaching. Most students who earn the M.A. degree either find
gainful employment in a degree-relevant job or move into the Ph.D. program.
The Ph.D. is offered with emphases in the areas of cognitive, engineering, and social
psychology. All three areas have a joint focus on basic and applied research. There is
considerable overlap in the research interests of the cognitive and engineering faculty. These
interests include human memory, visual cognition, attention, sensation and perception,
neuroscience, language processing, cognitive and perceptual development, perception and action,
human-computer interaction, human factors, and modeling, among others. The social faculty
research interests include social cognition, evolutionary psychology, close relationships,
philosophy of science, emotions, sexuality, and gender-role attitudes.
Alumni of our programs work in corporate, government, and academic settings. For example,
our students have been employed by IBM, Lexmark, Dell, Cisco Systems, Honeywell, the FAA,
the Naval Warfare Research Center, and the CIA. Alumni working in academic settings have
been employed by educational institutions such as Winston Salem State University, Western
Kentucky University, California State University-Bakersfield, and the University of Western
Sydney.
Financial aid for graduate students is awarded on the basis of potential for research and teaching
in the form of an assistantship. Research and teaching assistantships are awarded for each of the
fall and spring semesters, and support ranges from partial (working 10 hours per week) to full
(working 20 hours per week). In 2013-2014, the salary for entering fully-supported M.A.
students was approximately $16,200 over 10 months; the salary for entering Ph.D. students was
approximately $17,000 over 10 months.
To be considered for admission all material should be on file in the department via the NMSU
online submission portal by January 15, 2016. Students will be admitted to graduate study on
the basis of their potential for achievement in research. The most promising applicants will be
accepted. Because the number of students the department can successfully accommodate is
limited, it will not always be possible to admit all qualified applicants.
If you are interested in counseling or clinical psychology, we advise that you contact the
Counseling and Educational Psychology Department.
To be considered for admission for graduate study in the Psychology Department, the
minimum application consists of (with minimum acceptable values provided in
parentheses, where applicable):
1. A completed Graduate School admission application
(http://prospective.nmsu.edu/graduate/apply/ ).
2. Complete transcripts of all college work (minimum 3.0 GPA).
3. Graduate Record Exam (GRE) score. Applicants to the M.A. program are most likely to
be considered with minimum scores of 155 Verbal, 156 Quantitative, and 4.5 Analytical
Writing. Applicants to the Ph.D. program are most likely to be considered with minimum
scores of 158 Verbal, 159 Quantitative, and 4.5 Analytical Writing. Scores on the GRE
Psychology test are not required.
4. Three (3) letters of recommendation from professors, employers, or others qualified to
evaluate your potential for graduate work (uploaded during online application process).
5. A personal statement explaining your research interests and experience and an indication
of the faculty members whose work is of particular interest to you (uploaded during
online application process). Our program uses an apprenticeship model where students
learn how to conduct original research by collaborating closely with their advisor. Thus, a
close match between the research interests of the student and his/her advisor is a critical
factor in our admission decisions.
6. A curriculum vitae (uploaded during
online application process).
7. A sample of your writing (e.g., a
research article, a paper you wrote
for a course a senior thesis, or a
Master’s thesis, uploaded during
online application process). Ideally,
the sample should demonstrate your
ability to write clearly about
psychological research.
Additional application information and
requirements can be found on our website at
http://www-psych.nmsu.edu/.
Contact information and representative publications for our faculty members are listed below in
alphabetical order:
Chen, Jing (Assistant Professor) 646-4715,
jingchen@nmsu.edu
Proctor, R. W. & Chen, J. (in press; invited paper).
Science of security: Decision making and action
selection in cyberspace. Human Factors.
Chen, J., Gates, C., Li, N., & Proctor, R. W. (in
press). Influence of risk/safety information framing
on android app-installation decisions. Journal of
Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making.
Chen, J. & Proctor, R. W. (2014). Conceptual
response distance and intervening keys distinguish
action goals in the Stroop color-identification
task. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 1238-1243
Dolgov, Igor (Associate Professor) 646-2298, id@nmsu.edu
Dolgov, I., Graves, W., Nearents, M., Schwark, J., & Volkman, C. B. (2014). Effects of
cooperative gaming and avatar customization on subsequent spontaneous helping
behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 49-55.
Schwark, J., Dolgov, I., Sandry, J., & Volkman, C. B. (2013). Simultaneous attentional
guidance by working-memory and selection history reveals two distinct sources of
attention. Acta Psychologica, 144, 269-278.
Shaffer, D., Dolgov, I., Maynor, A., & Reed, C. (2013). Receivers in American football use a
constant optical projection plane angle to pursue and catch thrown footballs. Perception, 42,
813-827.
Guynn, Melissa (Associate Professor) 646-1047, mguynn@nmsu.edu
Guynn, M. J., McDaniel, M. A., Strosser, G. L., Ramirez, J. M., Castleberry, E. H., & Arnett,
K. H. (2014). Relational and item-specific influences on generate-recognize processes in
recall. Memory & Cognition, 42, 198-211.
Guynn, M. J. (2008). Theory of monitoring in prospective memory: Instantiating a retrieval
mode and periodic target checking. In M. Kliegel, M. A. McDaniel, & G. O. Einstein (Eds.),
Prospective memory: Cognitive, neuroscience, developmental, and applied perspectives (pp.
53-76). New York: Erlbaum.
Guynn, M. J. (2003). A two-process model of strategic monitoring in event-based
prospective memory: Activation/retrieval mode and checking. International Journal of
Psychology, 38, 245-256.
Hout, Michael (Assistant Professor) 646-1730, mhout@nmsu.edu
Godwin, H., Hout, M. C., & Menneer, T. (in press). Visual similarity is stronger than
semantic similarity in guiding visual search for numbers. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Hout, M. C., & Goldinger, S. D. (2013). To see or not to see? Scientific American MIND
Magazine, 24, 60-67.
Hout, M. C., Papesh, M. H., & Goldinger, S. D. (2012). Multidimensional scaling. Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs): Cognitive Science, 4, 93-103.
Ketelaar, Timothy (Associate Professor) 646-1833, ketelaar@nmsu.edu
Ketelaar. T., Koenig, B. L., Gambacorta, D., Dolgov, I., Hor, D., Zarzosa, J., Cuahtemoc,
L.N., Klunge, M. & Wells, L. (2012). Smiles as signals of lower status in football players and
fashion models: Evidence that smiles are associated with lower dominance and lower
prestige. Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 371-397.
Dijk, C., Koenig, B., Ketelaar, T. & Dejong, P. J. (2011). Saved by the blush: Being trusted
despite defecting. Emotion, 11, 313 - 319.
Ketelaar, T. (2006). The role of moral sentiments in economic decision making, in Social
Psychology and Economics , D. De Cremer, M. Zeelenberg, & K. Murnighan (Eds.). (pp. 97116). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kroger, Jim (Associate Professor) 646-2243, jkk251@gmail.com
Kim, C., Kroger, J. K., & Kim, J. (2011). A functional dissociation of conflict processing
within anterior cingulate cortex. Human Brain Mapping, 32, 304-312.
Kroger, J. K., Nystrom, L. E., Cohen, J. D., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008). Distinct neural
substrates for deductive and mathematical processing. Brain Research, 1243, 86-103.
Fuster, J. M., Bodner, M., & Kroger, J. K. (2000). Cross-modal and cross-temporal
association in neurons of frontal cortex. Nature, 405, 347-351.
MacDonald, Justin (Associate Professor) 646-6223, jmacd@nmsu.edu
MacDonald, J. A. (2008). A localization algorithm based on head-related transfer
functions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 4290-4296.
MacDonald, J. A. (2011). Using the ideal observer to predict performance in perceptual
tasks: An example from the auditory temporal masking domain. Attention, Perception, &
Psychophysics, 73, 2639 – 2648.
MacDonald, J. A. & Trafimow, D. (2013). A measure of within-participant response
consistency. Behavior Research Methods, 45, 950-954.
Madson, Laura (Associate Professor) 646-6207, lmadson@nmsu.edu
Madson, L., Trafimow, D., & Gray, T. (in press). What predicts use of learning-centered
interactive engagement methods. Journal of Faculty Development.
Madson, L.& Shoda, J. (2006). Alternating between masculine and feminine pronouns: Does
essay topic affect readers’ perceptions? Sex Roles, 54, 275-285.
Madson, L. (2001). A classroom activity exploring the complexity of sexual orientation.
Teaching of Psychology, 28, 32-35.
Marks, Michael (Associate Professor) 646-1980, mjmarks@nmsu.edu
Marks, M. J., Trafimow, D., & Rice, S. C. (in press). Attachment-related individual
differences in the consistency of relationship behavior interpretation. Journal of Personality.
Busche, L., Marks, M., & Oates, K. (2013). The effect of recent sexual activity on partner
desirability: An evolutionary perspective. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural
Psychology, 7, 51-65.
Marks, M. J. (2008). Evaluations of sexually active men and women under divided attention:
A social cognitive approach to the sexual double standard. Basic and Applied Social
Psychology, 30, 84-91.
Simon, Dominic (Department Head) 646-3533, domsimon@nmsu.edu
Simon, D. A. (2013) Spaced and massed practice. In J. Hattie, & E. M. Anderman (Eds.),
International guide to student achievement (pp. 411-413). New York: Routledge.
Son, L. K., & Simon, D. A. (2012) Distributed learning: Data, metacognition, and
educational implications. Educational Psychology Review, 24, 379-399.
Simon, D. A., & Bjork, R. A. (2001). Metacognition in motor learning. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 27, 907-912.
Thompson, Laura (Professor) 646-4024, thompson@nmsu.edu
Stauble, M. R., Thompson, L. A., & Morgan, G. (2013). Increases in cortisol are positively
associated with gains in encoding and maintenance working memory performance in young
males. Stress: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress, 16, 402-410.
Morgan, G., Killough, C. M., and Thompson, L. A. (2013). Does visual information
influence infants' movement to music? Psychology of Music, 41, 249-264.
Thompson, L. A., Malloy, D. M., & Le Blanc, K. L. (2009). Lateralization of visuospatial
attention across face regions varies with emotional prosody, Brain and Cognition, 69, 108115.
Trafimow, David (Professor) 646-4023, dtrafimo@nmsu.edu
Trafimow, D. (in press). On Retiring the TRA/TPB Without Retiring the Lessons Learned:
Commentary on Sniehotta et al. Health Psychology Review.
Trafimow, D. (in press). On teaching about the coefficient of variation in introductory
statistics courses. Teaching Statistics.
Trafimow, D. (in press). The invalidity of the distinction between inherent and non-inherent
ethical concerns. American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience.