Name Pronunciation Guide:
"MAY-gen hen-kel-man"

Click below to hear pronunciation

B.Sc., University of Toronto, 1989
M.Sc., McGill University, 1991
Ph.D., McGill University, 1995

Curriculum Vitae [PDF]

Name Pronunciation Guide:
"M-aAIR-ee Oh-m-st-EH-d"

Click below to hear pronunciation

Research Interests

My research is directed towards understanding the neural and psychological interface between motivation and cognition,- or how rewarding stimuli influence learning. My working hypothesis is that goal-directed behaviours and cognitive processes, as part of a dynamic interactive system, reciprocally modulate each other. In order to investigate these process, I have adopted two complementary approaches in my work. The first is a theoretical overview of the interaction between motivation and cognition that examines how reward-related learning is manifested in behaviour. The second is an examination of specific neural systems which may mediate the cognitive-motivational interface. The majority of my research focuses on animal models of drug addiction as this disorder is characterized by a breakdown in the 'normal' balance between motivation and cognition.

Selected Publications

Click to go to a full list of publications by Mary Olmstead

Books:

Olmstead, M.C. & Kuhlmeier, V.K. (2015). Comparative Cognition. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Olmstead, M.C. (Ed.) (2016). Animal Cognition: Principles, Evolution, and Development. Hauppage, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Olmstead, M.C. (Ed.) (2014). Psychology of Impulsivity: New Research. Hauppage, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Olmstead, M.C. (Ed.) (2010). Animal Models of Drug Addiction. Totowa NJ: Humana Press Inc.

B.A., University of California, 1993
M.A., University of Oregon, 1996
Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1998

Lab Site

Curriculum Vitae [PDF]

Name Pronunciation Guide:
"mark SA-buh"

Click below to hear pronunciation

Research Interests

Theory of mind, social learning, executive functioning, and conceptual change in preschool aged children. Also: Theory of mind and social functioning in adults

Recent Publications

Sjaarda, C. P., Sabbagh, M. A., Wood, S., Ward-King, J., McNaughton, A., J. M., Hudson, M. L., Tao, M., Ayub, M., & Liu, X. (2019). Homozygosity for the 10-repeat dopamine transporter (DAT1) allele is associated with reduced EEG response in males with ASD. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 60, 25-35.

Shamblaw, A., Benson, J. E., Harkness, K. L., & Sabbagh, M. A. (2019). Maternal depression and preschoolers' false belief understanding. Social Development. Click to read this publication: doi.org/10.1111/sode.12369

Hudson, C. C., Shamblaw, A., Wilson, G. A., Roes, M. M., Sabbagh, M. A., & Harkness, K. L. (2018). Theory of mind, excessive reassurance-seeing, and stress generation in depression: A social-cognitive-interpersonal integration. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37, 725-750.

Sabbagh, M. A. & Paulus, M. (2018). Editorial: Replication studies of infant false belief. Cognitive Development.

Sabbagh, M. A. & Bowman, L. C. (2018). Theory of mind. In S. Ghetti (Ed.) Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience (4th ed.). New York: Wiley.

Mangardich, H. M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2017). Mechanisms of selective social learning: Evidence and implications. To appear in M. M. Saylor & P. Ganea (Eds.) Language and Concept Development from Infancy Through Childhood: Social Motivation, Cognition, and Linguistic Mechanisms of Learning.

Bardikoff, N. F. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). The differentiation of executive functioning across development: Insights from developmental cognitive neuroscience. To appear in N. Budwig, E. Turiel, & P. D. Zelazo (Eds.), New Perspectives On Human Development.

Mangardich, H. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). Children remember words from ignorant speakers but do not attach meaning: Evidence from event-related potentials. Developmental Science.

Sabbagh, M. A., Koenig, M. A., & Kuhlmeier, V. A. (2016). Conceptual constraints and mechanisms in children's selective social learning. Developmental Science. doi: 10.1111/desc.12415

Schell, V. E. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). Theory of mind and communication: Developmental perspectives. To appear in A. Bar-On & D. Ravid (Eds.). Handbook of communication disorders: Theoretical, empirical and applied linguistics perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Sabbagh, M. A. (2015). Dopamine and theory of mind development. In J. Sommerville & J. Decety (Eds.) Social Cognition: Frontiers in Developmental Science. New York: Psychology Press.

Tahiroglu, D., Moses, L. J., Carlson, S. M., Olafson, E., Mahy, C. E. V. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2014). The Children’s Social Understanding Scale: Construction and validation of a parent-report measure for assessing individual differences in children’s theories of mind. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2485-2497.

Mo, S., Su, Y., Sabbagh, M. A., & Xiu, J. (2014). Sentential complements and false belief understanding in Chinese Mandarin-speaking preschoolers: A training study. Cognitive Development, 29, 50-61.

Koenig, M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2013). Selective Social Learning: New perspectives on learning from others. Developmental Psychology, 49, 399-403.

Henderson, A. M. E., Sabbagh, M. A., & Woodward, A. L. (2013). Preschoolers' selective learning is guided by the principle of relevance, Cognition, 126, 246-257.

Benson, J. E., Sabbagh, M. A., Carlson, S. M. & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Individual differences in executive functioning predict preschoolers improvement from theory-of-mind training, Developmental Psychology.

Lackner, C. L., Sabbagh, M. A., Hallinan, E., Liu, X., & Holden, J. J. E. (2012). Dopamine receptor D4 gene variation predicts preschoolers' developing theory of mind. Developmental Science, 15, 272-280.

B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 2007
Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2015

Lab Site

Curriculum Vitae [PDF]

Name Pronunciation Guide:
"lwees [one syllable] or lew-ees [two syllables; easier anglicized version] FLOH – rehss [the Spanish “r” almost sounds like the English “d”; “ehss” sounds like the end of “dress”] "

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Please note: I will not be admitting a new graduate student for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Research Interests

The central theme of my research is how close relationships and interpersonal functioning confer protection or risk in the development and clinical course of depression. Although interpersonal relationships are considered both a protective and risk factor for psychopathology, including depression, the mechanisms are not yet sufficiently understood. To better understand these mechanisms, my work has focused on the following three interrelated lines of clinical and basic research using experimental and naturalistic methods (e.g., fMRI, ecological momentary assessment): (1) the role of interpersonal factors in depression; (2) the cognitive-affective benefits of the social regulation of emotion; and (3) the roles of social and reward neural circuitries in rewarding and supportive social experiences. Further, I have primarily focused on examining these three lines of research in adolescence and young adulthood, as they are periods involving high depression risk, high sensitivity to social stimuli, and continued social and affective development.

Selected Publications

Flores, Jr., L.E., Eckstrand, K.L., Silk, J.S., Allen, N.B., Ambrosia, M., Healey, K.L., & Forbes, E.E. (in press). Adolescents’ neural response to social reward and real-world emotional closeness and positive affect. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.

Flores, Jr., L.E., Cyranowski, J.M., Amole, M., & Swartz, H.A. (2017). Prospective assessment of social network quality among depressed mothers treated with brief psychotherapy: Validation of the Social Network Quality (SNQ) scales. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 78, 98-106.

Flores, Jr., L. E., & Berenbaum, H. (2017). The social regulation of emotion and updating negative contents of working memory. Emotion, 17(4), 577-588.

Flores, Jr., L.E., & Berenbaum, H. (2017). The effect of the social regulation of emotion on emotional long-term memory. Emotion, 17(3), 547-556.

Flores, Jr., L.E., & Berenbaum, H. (2014). Desired emotional closeness moderates the prospective relations between levels of perceived emotional closeness and psychological distress. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 33(8), 673-700.

Flores, Jr., L. E., & Berenbaum, H. (2012). Desire for emotional closeness moderates the effectiveness of the social regulation of emotion. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(8), 952-957.

Name Pronunciation Guide:
"k-ee-ah-nn-ah r-ow-ch-an"

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