Cognitive research earns UA professor prestigious NSF CAREER award
by February 27, 2024 2:17 pm 242 views
Grant Shields, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas, has been honored with a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is considered one of NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty.
The five-year, $454,000 grant will support Shields’ research on the cognitive processes involved in inhibitory control under stress.
UA officials announced the details Tuesday (Feb. 27).
Inhibitory control refers to the ability to manage automatic urges, emotions and behaviors. Shields’ research seeks to understand how different contexts, particularly stress, affect inhibitory control, which is essential for producing favorable outcomes.
According to the UA news release, Shields aims to fill gaps in previous research by comprehensively examining the various cognitive processes underlying stress-related differences in inhibitory control. He plans to investigate whether the current understanding of these processes is accurate and to propose a novel hypothesis that could potentially revise existing interpretations.
During the next five years, Shields’ research will include conducting experiments involving cognitive tasks under different conditions. Advanced computational cognitive modeling and mouse-tracking techniques will be utilized to analyze task data.
According to the release, Shields also intends to develop a publicly available course and workshops to disseminate the project’s findings and technical skills required to utilize its methods.
Shields is the first UA professor to receive the CAREER grant in social, behavioral and economic sciences. UA faculty have received 63 CAREER awards since 1997, with the bulk going to engineering (24), math and physics (17) and biology (12).