Hem=>Personal=>Tonya S. Pixton

Tonya S. Pixton

B.F.A. in Dance Performance
PhD in Psychology
Vik universitetslektor

Interests

My interests are focused within perception and experimental psychology. My main research interest is the visual perception of facial expressions with Professor Åke Hellström and Professor Maria Larsson.

Other interests include; sex-related differences, biological and cognitive processes of facial perception/recognition, stimulus effects, signal detection theory, and other interests concerning facial perception/recognition.

Education

In 1998, I completed my undergraduate studies with both a B.A. in Psychology and a B.F.A. in Dance Performance at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I complemented my main field of studies with Women's Studies and Religious Studies minors, while earning recognition with the national honour society.

During my undergraduate studies, I was active in volunteering time to the community, working as a teacher's assistant in both dance and in behavioural psychology, as well as a research assistant in facilitated aversion conditioning, under the direction of Dr. Robert J. Batsell, Jr., Ph.D., in ... The Rat Lab!!!

In the spring of 2004, I completed my undergraduate thesis, Asymmetric Patterns of Switch Costs in Mixed Language Texts, at Stockholm University on bilingual persons and a language phenomenon called code switching and, therefore, receiving a B.Sc. in Psychology from Stockholm University.

Teaching

Lectures, seminars, and hands-on training in Research Methods and Scientific Theory, Scientific Method and Statistics, Psychology of Gender, Perception, Social Psychology, Cognition, Signal Detection Theory, and Face Perception/Recognition.

Publications

Pixton, T.S. (2011). Expecting Happy Women, Not Detecting the Angry Ones: Detection and Perceived Intensity of Facial Anger, Happiness, and Emotionality. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Psychology, Stockholm Univerity.

Find Pixton's abstracts in Annual Report.

Poster Presentations

Poster Presentation (2010): Perceived degree of facial happiness and: The role of the particular stimuli. In Bastianelli, A., & Vidotto, G. (Eds.), Fechner Day 10. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, (pp. 501-504). Padua, Italy: International Society for Psychophysics.

Poster Presentation (2009): Detectability and perceived degree of facial happiness, angriness, and emotion: The role of the particular stimuli. In Elliott, M. A., Antonijevic, S., Berthaud, S. Mulcahy, P., Martyn, C., Barger, b., & Schmidt, H. (Eds.), Fechner Day 09. Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, (pp. 393-398). Galway, Ireland: International Society for Psychophysics.

Poster Presentation (2008): Discriminability and perceived emotionality of facial expressions: The role of the particular face stimuli. In Schneider, B. A., Ben-David, B. M., Parker, S., & Wong, W. (Eds.), Fechner Day 08. Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, (pp. 123-128). Toronto, Canada: International Society for Psychophysics.

Poster Presentation (2007): Signal detection analysis of the perception of happiness and angriness in briefly presented faces. In Mori, S. Miyaoka, T., & Wong. W. (Eds.), Fechner Day 07. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, (pp. 421-426). Tokyo, Japan: International Society for Psychophysics.

Scientific Memberships

Student affiliate of The International Society for Psychophysics.

Student affiliate of the American Psychological Association.

Personal

I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A. and have lived across the U.S., as well as in Switzerland. I moved to Sweden in December 2001.

I have played the violin, and I have had the opportunity to have danced in both the U.S., Switzerland, and in Sweden. Today, my extracurricular interests include: reading, music and dancing (ballet), travelling, diving, and of course, living life to its fullest (laughter is often the best medicine)!!!