Educational Background
- PhD in Clinical Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
Tracy Dennis-Tiwary
Professor
- Behavioral Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology
Dr. Dennis' current projects focus on teen anxiety, neuro-cognitive and learning mechanisms in anxiety, mental health interventions, and the impact of digital technology on wellness.
See Contact DetailsAreas of Research
Our mission is to use the concept of emotion regulation to better understand how emotions promote competence or in some cases create vulnerability for mental illness. In particular, we are interested in how emotions and thoughts work together to promote well-being and stress resilience but, conversely, can create vulnerability for mood and anxiety disorders. We integrate the use of neurocognitive, physiological and behavioral assessment tools to refine the conceptualization and measurement of emotion regulation and of disorders of mood across the lifespan.
Topics of interest include:
- Neurocognitive signatures for emotion regulation and disorders of emotion
- Cognitive bias modification techniques, their neural bases, and using neurocognitive measures to predict treatment response
- Mobile media health and the development of alternative treatment delivery strategies
- School-based mindfulness training
Selected Publications
- Dennis, T.A., & O’Toole, L. (2014). Mental health on the go: Effects of a gamified attention bias modification mobile application in trait anxious adults. Clinical Psychological Science, 2(2), 1-15.
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O’Toole, L., Berthod, S., DeCicco, J., & Dennis, T.A. (2013). The N170 to angry faces predicts anxiety in typically-developing children over a two-year period. Developmental Neuropsychology, 38:5, 352-363.
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O’Toole, L.J., Dennis, T.A. (2012). Attention training and anxiety-related attentional biases: An ERP study. Brain and Cognition, 78, 63-73.
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Dennis, T.A., Buss, K.A., Hastings, P.D. (Eds.; 2012). Physiological measures of emotion from a developmental perspective: State of the science. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 77(2).
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DeCicco, J., Solomon, B., & Dennis, T.A. (2012). Neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal in children: An ERP study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 70-80.
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Cole, P.M., Martin, S.E., & Dennis, T.A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Challenges and directions for child development research. Child Development, 75, 317-333.