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case western reserve university

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

 
 

Heath A. Demaree, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

B.A. from Princeton University, 1993
M.S. from Virginia Tech, 1995
Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, 1998
Office Phone: 216-368-6468
Fax: 216-368-4891
E-mail Dr. Demaree
Visit Dr. Demaree's Lab Webpage

 

A cable-drawn caricature of Dr. Demaree, made by the amazing Kevin Burns

Biosketch

As an undergraduate, I was originally interested in biology and sociology. A course entitled “Brain and Behavior” merged these interests and switched my focus onto the complex interactions between brain activity, physiological arousal and, essentially, the ability to live life – to think, reason, perceive, express, and emote in complex, dynamic environments. I am primarily interested in individual differences in emotional processing. Trained as a clinical neuropsychologist , I spend most of my time teaching (undergraduate and graduate students) and performing research.

 

Research Interests

Our laboratory primarily investigates individual differences in emotional processing. We assess emotional processes in various ways - via self-report, behavioral (facial) coding, autonomic or other physiological measures (EEG, fMRI, etc.). We are interested in how personality traits and/or biological systems (e.g., Behavioral Activation and Behavioral Inhibition Systems; baseline neural activity) predict emotional reactivity as well as how people attempt to control emotional response (e.g., via the use of suppression or reappraisal techniques).

Although we have spent much time investigating emotion regulation, our new primary emphasis is on how emotions impact decision-making biases (especially decisions involving risk). At its very core, we think that most of life life involves risk – from deciding whether to ask that “special someone” out to deciding whether to pursue graduate school. We believe that people’s propensities to accept risk are in part based on positive and negative utilities they expect to experience from future, prospective, good and bad outcomes. Accordingly, we are interested in how affective biases play a role in such observations as Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Theories of interest include Richard Thaler’s “Path-Dependent” model, Alice Isen’s “Mood Maintenance” model, Kevin Burns’ Expectation-Violation-Explanation (EVE’) Model, and Brandstätter and colleague’s (2002) cognitive-emotional model of the probability weighting function. We believe that our research has important real-world implications, from taking everyday risks (some of which may be associated with self-harm; drug use, sexual risk-taking, etc.), to economic decisions involving investing and/or gambling, to strategic (risky) decisions of war. For an example of our “new” research, please see Demaree et al. (2008); Personality & Individual Differences.

We work closely with Erik Everhart at East Carolina University and Kevin Burns at MITRE.


Have more questions? Please email the laboratory or see our laboratory webpage here!

 

Courses Taught

  • FSCC 100 - Life of the Mind
  • PSCL 313 - Personality Psychology
  • PSCL 352 - Physiological Psychology
  • PSCL 403 - Physiological Foundations of Behavior

 

Publications while at CWRU (2001-present)

* - denotes graduate student author at the time of publication

** - denotes undergraduate student author at the time of publication

*DeDonno, M.A., & Demaree, H.A. (in press). Perceived time pressure and te Iowa Gambling Task. Judgment & Decision-Making.

Burns, K.J. & Demaree, H.A. (in press). A chance to learn: On matching probabilities to optimize utilities. Journal of Information Sciences.

Demaree, H.A., *Pu, J., Jesberger, J., Feeny, N., Jeng, L., Everhart, D.E., Duerk, J. & Tkach, J. (in press). 5HTTLPR predicts left fusiform gyrus activation to positive emotional stimuli. Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Allen, J.J.B., McKnight, K.M., Moreno, F.A., Demaree, H.A., & Delgado, P.L. (in press). Alteration of frontal EEG asymmetry during tryptophan depletion predicts future depression. Journal of Affective Disorders.

*Schmeichel, B.J., *Volokhov, R.N., & Demaree, H.A. (in press). Working memory capacity and the self-regulation of emotional expressions and experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

*Robinson, J.L. & Demaree, H.A. (in press). Experiencing and regulating sadness: Physiological and cognitive effects. Brain and Cognition.

Frazier, T.W., Frazier, A.R., Busch, R.M., **Kerwood, M.A. & Demaree, H.A. (2008). Detection of ADHD and reading disorder using symptom validity measures. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychoogy, 23, 501-509.

*Peterson, C.C., *Johnson, C.E., *Ramirez, L.Y., *Huestis, S., Pai, A.L.H., Demaree, H.A., & Drotar, D. (2008). A meta-analysis of the neuropsychological sequelae of chemotherapy-only treatment for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 51(1), 99-104.

Black, S.J., Everhart, D.E., Durham, T.W., Walker, M., & Demaree, H.A. (in press). The effects of anxiety on affective learning and serial position recall. International Journal of Neuroscience, 118(9), 1269-1285.

Demaree, H.A., *DeDonno, M.A., Burns, K.J., & Everhart, D.E. (2008). You bet: How personality differences affect risk-taking preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1484-1494.

Everhart, D.E., Demaree, H.A., & Harrison, D.W. (2008). The influence of hostility on electroencephalographic activity and memory functioning during an affective memory task. Clinical Neurophysiology, 119, 134-143.

*Robinson, J.L., & Demaree, H.A. (2007). Physiological and cognitive effects of expressive dissonance. Brain and Cognition, 63(1), 70-78.

Everhart, D. E., Demaree, H. A., & Shipley, A. J. (2006). Perception of emotional prosody: Moving toward a model that incorporates sex-related differences. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews.

Demaree, H. A., *Robinson, J. L., *Pu, J., & Allen, J. J. B. (2006). Strategies actually employed during response-focused emotion regulation research: Affective and physiological consequences. Cognition and Emotion.

*Schmeichel, B. J., Demaree, H. A., *Robinson, J. L., & *Pu, J. (2006). Ego depletion by response exaggeration. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(2), 95-102.

Demaree, H. A., * Pu , J., *Robinson, J. L., Schmeichel , B. J., & Everhart, D. E. (2006). Predicting facial valence to negative stimuli from resting RSA: Not a function of active emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion, 20(2), 161-176.

Demaree, H. A., *Schmeichel, B. J., *Robinson, J. L., *Pu, J., Everhart, D. E., & Berntson, G. G. (2006). Up- and down-regulating facial disgust: Affective, vagal, sympathetic, and respiratory consequences. Biological Psychology, 90-99.

Demaree, H. A., *Robinson, J. L., Everhart, D. E., & Youngstrom, E. A. (2005). Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) strength and trait dominance are associated with affective response and perspective taking when viewing dyadic interactions. International Journal of Neuroscience, 115(11), 1579-1593.

* Pu , J., Peng , D., Demaree, H. A., Song, Y., Wei , J., & Xu , L. (2005). The recognition potential: Semantic processing, the detection of differences between stimuli, or both? Cognitive Brain Research, 25(1), 273-282.

Demaree, H. A., Everhart, D. E., Youngstrom , E. A., & Harrison, D. W. (2005). Brain lateralization of emotional processing: Historical roots and a future incorporating “dominance”. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews , 4(1) , 3-20.

*Butt, Z. A., & Demaree, H. A. (2004). Assessing depression in patients with multiple sclerosis. International Journal of MS Care, 6 (3), 116-122.

Demaree, H. A., * Schmeichel , B. J., *Robinson, J. L., & Everhart, D. E. (2004). Behavioral, affective, and physiological effects of negative and positive emotional exaggeration. Cognition and Emotion, 18 (8), 1079-1097.

Demaree, H. A., *Robinson, J. L., Everhart, D. E., & * Schmeichel , B. J. (2004). Resting RSA is associated with emotional expression and affect regulation ability in response to negative stimuli. Brain and Cognition , 56 (1), 14-23.

*Frazier, T. W., Demaree, H. A., & Youngstrom , E. A. (2004). Meta-analysis of intellectual and neuropsychological test performance in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A meta-analysis. Neuropsychology, 18 (3), 543-555.

Demaree, H. A., Shenal , B. V., Everhart, D. E., & *Robinson, J. L. (2004). Primacy and recency effects found using affective word lists. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 17 (2), 102-108.

Demaree, H. A., & Everhart, D. E. (2004). Healthy high-hostiles: Reduced parasympathetic activity and decreased sympathovagal flexibility during emotional processing. Personality and Individual Differences , 36 (2), 457-469.

Everhart, D. E., & Demaree, H. A., & Wuensch , K. L. (2003). Healthy high-hostiles evidence low-alpha power (7.5-9.5Hz) changes during negative affective learning. Brain and Cognition , 52 (3), 334-342.

Williamson, J. B., Shenal, B. V., Rhodes, R. D., Harrison, D. W., & Demaree, H. A. (2003). Quantitative EEG diagnostic confirmation of expressive aprosodia. Applied Neuropsychology, 10 (3), 176-181.

Demaree, H. A., Gaudino , E. A., & DeLuca , J. (2003). The relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 8 (3), 161-171.

Chiaravalloti , N. D., Christodoulou, C., Demaree, H. A., & DeLuca , J. (2003). Differentiating simple versus complex processing speed: Influence on new learning and memory performance. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25 (4), 489-501.

Everhart, D. E., & Demaree, H. A. (2003). Low alpha power (7.5-9.5Hz) changes during positive and negative emotional processing. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, 3 (1), 39-45.

Shenal, B. V., Harrison, D. W., & Demaree, H. A. (2003). The neuropsychology of depression: A literature review and preliminary model. Neuropsychology Review, 13 (1), 33-42.

Chiaravalloti , N. D., Demaree, H., Gaudino , E. A., & DeLuca , J. (2003). Can the repetition effect maximize learning in Multiple Sclerosis? Clinical Rehabilitation , 17 (1), 58-68.

Demaree, H. A., Higgins, D. A., Williamson, J. B., & Harrison, D. W. (2002). Asymmetry in hand grip strength and fatigue in low- and high-hostile men. International Journal of Neuroscience , 112 (4), 415-428.

Rhodes, R. D., Harrison, D. W., & Demaree, H. A. (2002). Hostility as a moderator of physiological reactivity and recovery to stress. International Journal of Neuroscience, 112 (2), 167-186.

Everhart, D. E., Demaree, H. A., Harrison, D. W., & Williamson, J. B. (2001). “Delusions” of space: A case study utilizing topographical brain mapping and QEEG. Journal of Neurotherapy, 4 (4), 19-29.

 

Publications (selected others)

Brody, A. L., Saxena, S., Fairbanks, L. A., Alborzian, S., Demaree, H. A., Maidment, K. M., & Baxter, L. R. (2000). Personality changes in adult subjects with major depressive disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder treated with paroxetine. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 61(5), 349-355.

Demaree, H. A., Harrison, D. W., & Rhodes (2000). Quantitative electroencephalographic analyses of cardiovascular regulation in low- and high-hostile men. Psychobiology, 28(3), 420-431.

Demaree, H. A., & Harrison, D. W. (1997). Physiological and neuropsychological correlates of hostility. Neuropsychologia, 35(10), 1405-1411.

Demaree, H. A., & Harrison, D. W. (1997). A neuropsychological model relating self-awareness to hostility. Neuropsychology Review, 7(4), 171-185.

Herridge, M. L., Harrison, D. W., & Demaree, H. A. (1997). Hostility, facial configuration, and bilateral asymmetry on galvanic skin response. Psychobiology, 25(1), 71-76.