Ohio Wesleyan University | News & Media | Expert Source: Expert Source: N. Kyle Smith, Ph.D.

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Expert Source: N. Kyle Smith, Ph.D.

N. Kyle Smith, a social psychologist, focuses his research on the way positive and negative stimuli are processed. Smith’s dissertation focused on using electrophysiological measures of attention allocation to determine how quickly attention is allocated to negative information. He has written numerous articles for psychology publications and frequently supervises student-initiated research projects at the university. Every year he teaches a freshman honors tutorial titled “The Science of Subliminal Messages.”

Education

B.S., Union College
M.A., Ph.D., The Ohio State University

Areas of Expertise

Processing of positive and negative stimuli
Unconscious processing
Psychology and the paw
The effects of pheromones on mood

Publications

“Being bad isn’t always good: Affective context moderates the attention bias toward negative information” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
“The affect system: What lurks below the surface of feelings?” (“Feelings and emotions: The Amsterdam Conference”)
“May I have your attention, please: Electrocortical responses to positive and negative stimuli” (“Neuropsychologia”)
“Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
“Investigations of closure processes: What source-monitoring judgments suggest about what is ‘closing’ ” (“Memory and Cognition”)