WORK ADDRESS

222 Pryale Hall

Oakland University

Rochester MI,  48309- 4489

Phone:  (248) 370 - 4680

Fax:       (248) 370 - 4612

Email: sifonis@oakland.edu

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

Associate professor, 2000 - present	Oakland University
Post doctoral research fellow,  1998 – 2000	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

EDUCATION:

Ph.D.	Psychology, 1998	Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
M.A.	Psychology, 1995	Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
B.A.	Psychology, 1993	Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN Magna Cum Laude;  Minor: Computer Science

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

The Interaction Between Category Knowledge and Category Use

Broadly speaking, my research investigates the interaction between category knowledge and category use.  Specifically, I examine how people use their knowledge of the world to generate new ideas.  Within this broad domain, I tend to focus on issues of alignability (alignability is a theoretical construct describing the manner in which concepts are compared).  My work on analogical reasoning is included under this research heading. Also included is research examining the effects of examples on performance in a creative generation task.  Undergraduates are included in the research.

The Use of Analogical Reasoning for Generating Innovative Ideas

This research focuses on identifying various factors affecting the quality of solutions generated using analogical problem solving.  Some of my research in this area was funded by a grant from General Motors and examines the optimal methodology to be used in conducting “Cross-Domain Analogical Analysis” workshops.

Areas of interest include determining how features of a source domain (type of domain, conceptual distance from target domain) and the method of mapping between the source and target domains affect the creativity of the resultant product.

Undergraduates are included in research, presentations at national conferences, and publications.

The Effect of Examples on Performance in Creative Generation Tasks

This research focuses on examining the underlying causes of the "conformity effect." The conformity effect is the tendency of individuals engaged in a creative generation task to conform to the features of examples viewed prior to beginning the task. My specific interest in the conformity effect is on how existing category knowledge determines the components of the example attended to and copied to the novel products as well as how the magnitude of the conformity effect is influenced by charateristics of the category knowledge being used in the task.

Conscious and Nonconscious Processes Supporting Deductive Reasoning

This research examines the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying performance in deductive reasoning tasks such as transitive inference.  Of specific interest is the interaction of conscious and non-conscious processes supporting this type of reasoning.  Research to date has been presented at three conferences and is currently being written up for publication (undergraduate students are co-authors in this article).  Future directions include examining the learning conditions and stimuli that promote either conscious or non-conscious reasoning performance.  I suspect that these processes also operate during inductive reasoning tasks such as analogical reasoning and my future goal is to use what I have learned using this simpler reasoning task to inform hypotheses about the relative contributions of conscious and nonconscious processes to analogical reasoning.

Undergraduates are included in research, and presentations at national conferences.

PUBLICATIONS:

Sifonis, C.M., Chernoff, A. & Kolpasky, K (2006). The innovation pipeline: Analogy as a tool for communicating about innovation. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 3, 1-19.

Ward, T.B., Patterson, M.J., & Sifonis, C.M. (2004). The role of specificity and abstraction in creative idea generation. Creativity Research Journal, 16, 1-9.

General Motors Vehicle Development Research Lab (2003, December). Analogical Reasoning and Its Application to the Business Process. (GM R&D Center Contract Report CR-03/20/VDR).  Troy, MI: Sifonis, C.M., Chen, F.H.K., & Bommarito, D.E.

Sifonis, C.M. & Ross, B.H. (2002). Alignment effects on learning use-relevant classification systems.  Memory & Cognition, 30, 1148-1158.

Ward, T.B., Patterson, M.J., Sifonis, C.M., Dodds, R. & Saunders, K.(2002). The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought. Memory & Cognition, 30, 199-216.

Smith, S. M., Ward, T. B., Tindell, D. R., Sifonis, C. M., & Wilkenfeld, M. J. (2000). Category structure and created memories. Memory & Cognition, 28, 386-395.

Ward, T.B., Dodds, R., Saunders, K., & Sifonis, C.M. (2000) Attribute centrality and imaginative thought. Memory & Cognition, 28,1387-1397.

Sifonis, C.M. & Ward, T.B. (1998). Structural alignment in relational interpretations of conceptual combinations. In M.A. Gernsbacher & S.J. Derry (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 968-973). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Smith, S.M., Sifonis, C.M., & Tindell, D.R. (1998). Hints do not evoke solutions via passive spreading activation. In M.A. Gernsbacher & S.J. Derry (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp.1003-1006). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ward, T.B. & Sifonis, C.M. (1997). Task demands and generative thinking: What changes and what remains the same? Journal of Creative Behavior, 31, 245-259.

GRANTS & CONTRACTS:

“The Benefits and Consequences of Podcasting on Academic Performance in a Research Methods and Design Course” Oakland University Educational Development Grant. Principle investigator/grant writer. Fall 2006. Awarded $300.

“Analogy for Communication and Innovation Project" General Motors project funding the development of a technique for creating analogies to communicate about innovations. Principle investigator/proposal writer. May 2004 – September 2004. Awarded $22,000.

“Development of Guidelines to Achieve Robust Cross-Domain Analogical Analysis (CDAA) Workshops.” General Motors Grant # 38870, principle investigator/grant writer, Fall/Winter 2003-2004. Awarded $65,000

“Analogy and Its Application to the Business Process.” General Motors Contract # TCS24470. An extensive literature review provided to General Motors summarizing the research examining analogical problem solving and proposing how to use this knowledge to enhance innovation. Principle investigator/proposal writer. May 2002 - September 2002. Awarded $32,000

“High-level influences on the determination of the parts making up categories of events.”  Oakland University Faculty Research Fellowships, principle investigator/grant writer. Spring/Summer 2001. Awarded $7,500.00.

INVITED TALKS:

Sifonis, C.M. (2009, July). How Structure Mapping Between Domains Affects the Creativity of Solutions Generated During Analogical Reasoning. Invited symposium talk presented at the Analogy09 conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Sifonis, C.M. (2009, May). TheInfluence of Category Membership on Featural and Relational Conformity in a Category Generation Task. Invited talk presented to the Cognitive Psychology Research Group at Texas A&M, College Station, TX.

Sifonis, C.M. (2004, March).  The Structured Use of Analogy for Facilitating Creative Thinking. Invited talk presented to the Department of Research and Development at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, MI.

Sifonis, C.M. (2003, March). Analogy and Creativity. Invited talk presented to the Sigma Xi Society at Oakland University

Sifonis, C.M. & Ward, T.B. (1997, May). Simulating the old in new ideas.  Invited talk presented at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Neural Networks (ICNN 97), Houston, TX.

WORKSHOPS:

July 2009 - 5 classes on Creative Cognition in Real and Virtual Worlds presented at the 16th Annual Summer School in Cognitive Science at NBU, Sophia, Bulgaria

August 2008 - 1/2 day workshop at Oakland University educating attendees about creativity and analogy while providing hands-on experience applying the various Structured Analogical Analysis Methodologies.

February 2007 – 3 hour Hot Topic workshop at Walsh Business Leadership Institute educating attendees about creativity and analogy and providing hands-on experience applying the Structured Analogical Analysis Methodology (SAAM) to a product development problem.

May 2004 - ½ day workshop training employees at General Motors how to use analogies to communicate about innovation ( Troy , MI )

May 2004 – ½ day workshop training employees at General Motors the Cross Domain Analogical Analysis (CDAA) technique for using analogies to generate new ideas ( Troy , MI )

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:

Sifonis, C.M. (2008, November). How mapping similarities and differences affects creativity during analogical problem solving. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. (2007, November). The use of schematic knowledge during a creative generation task. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, CA.

Sifonis, C.M. & Zitrick, A. (2008, May). The benefits and consequences of podcasting on performance in a research methods course. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. & Chen, F.H.K. (2006, October). Process innovation through novel analogical ideation approaches. Paper presented at the 13th annual Innovation Immergence conference, San Diego, CA

Sifonis, C.M., Chen F.H.K., & Zarb, J. (2006, May). Cross domain analogical analysis increases the creativity of work-team generated novel processes. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, New York, NY.

Sifonis, C.M. & Chen, F.H.K. & Bommarito, D. (2005, July ). The effects of selective mapping between complex domains on creativity in a generation task. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Stresa, Italy .

Sifonis, C.M., Groleau, A., McIntosh, T., & Levy, W.B. (2005, May). The effect of working memory load on transitive inference. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Los Angeles, CA.

Sifonis, C.M. (2004, November). The effect of domain information on the structured use of analogy for enhancing innovation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN.

Sifonis, C.M. & Levy, W.B. (2004, August). The effect of working memory load on transitive inference. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. (2003, November). The effect of conceptual distance on analogical problem solving. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC.

Chen, F.H.K., Bommarito, D. & Sifonis, C.M. (2003, September). Business process innovation through analogical reasoning.  Paper presented at the annual Innovation Convergence meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

Sifonis, C.M., Chen, F.H.K. & Bommarito, D. (2003, August).  Analogy as a tool to enhance innovative problem solving. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston, MA.

Sifonis, C.M., Ward, T.B., & Gentner. D. (2002, November). The effect of multiple examples on mapping in a generation task. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Kansas City, MO.

Sifonis, C.M. (2002, May). The effect of multiple examples on a creative generation task. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. (2001, November). Factors determining the perception of parts making up event categories. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Orlando, FL.

Sifonis, C.M. (2001, May). Exemplar production in response to category goals. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. (2000, May). The graded structure of script-based categories.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Sifonis, C.M. & Ross, B.H. (1999, August). The effects of alignability on learning the use of categories.  Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, BC.

Ward, T.B., Sifonis, C.M., Saunders, K., Dodds, R., & Wilkenfeld, M. J. (1998, November). Primed access to category exemplars in creative generation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Dallas, TX.

Sifonis, C.M. & Ward, T.B. (1998, August). Structural alignment in relational interpretations of conceptual combinations.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.

Smith, S.M., Sifonis, C.M., & Tindell, D.R. (1998, August). Hints do not evoke solutions via passive spreading activation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.

Allen, C.F., Sifonis, C.M., & Smith, S.M. (1998, August). Tests of remote association. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.

Levy, W.B., Smith, S.M., & Sifonis, C.M. (1998, August). Internally generated remindings and hippocampal recapitulations. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.

Smith, S. M., Tindell, D. R., Gilliland, T.R., Pierce, B.H., Sifonis, C. M., & Wilkenfeld, M. J. (1997, November). The role of source memory in the recognition of falsely recalled material. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Philadelphia, PA.

Sifonis, C.M., Ward, T.B., Gentner, D., & Houska, M. (1997, August). Relation versus object mapping in creative generation.  Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, San Francisco, CA.

Sifonis, C.S., Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Wilkenfeld, M.J., & Tindell, D.R. (1997, May). The effects of priming, output dominance, and typicality on created memories in categorized lists. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Texas Cognition Conference (ARMADILLO), Austin, TX.

Ward, T.B., Sifonis, C.M. & Wilkenfeld, M.J. (1996, November) Graded category structure and generative thinking: The humans and hammers effects. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago IL.

Smith, S.M., Sifonis, C.M., Tindell, D.R., Wilkenfeld, M.J., Pierce, B., & Ward, T.B. (1996, November) Priming and category dominance in created memories. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago IL.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Gleaves, D.H., Sifonis, C.M., Pierce, B., Tindell, D.R., & Wilkenfeld, M.J. (1996, May). Category structure in created memories. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Ward, T.B., Sifonis, C.M., & Wilkenfeld, M.J. (1995, November). Knowledge structures and emergence in creative tasks. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Los Angeles, CA.

Sifonis, C.M. (1995, May). An on-line look at the creative process.  Poster presented at the Creative Concepts Conference, Texas A&M University.

Tindell, D., Sifonis, C.M., & Wilkenfeld, M.J. (1995, May). Conceptual combination: A new way of looking at creativity. Poster presented at the Creative Concepts Conference, Texas A&M University.

Ward, T.B. & Sifonis, C.M. (1994, November). What’s old about new ideas: A look at the use of knowledge structures in the creative process. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St Louis, MS.

HONORS AND AWARDS:

Nominated for teaching excellence award, May, 2006

Recognition of distinguished faculty at the Board of Trustees meeting, August 6, 2003

Faculty recognition luncheon, May 7, 2003 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Advanced Experimental Design (Psy 450)

Cognitive Psychology (Psy 316)

Creativity & Innovation (Psy 305 / Ent 305)

Research Methods and Design (Psy 250)

Basic Psychological Processes (Psy 215)

Foundations of Contemporary Psychology (Psy 100)

Animal Assisted Therapy Certification Course - Module 2 (research methods and basic processes)

SERVICE:

a. Public Service

b. Professional Service

Activity	Dates	Activity Role
Journal of Creative Behavior	2004 – present	Editorial Board
International Journal for Creativity and Problem Solving, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Memory & Cognition, Journal of Memory And Language, Creativity Research Journal	1998-present	Reviewer
Creative Concepts Conference	Spring 1995	Assistant Coordinator

c. University Service

Activity	Dates	Activity Role
New Student Convocation	2001, 2005 - present	Participated
Senate Library Committee	2005-2007	Member
GenEd Social Sciences Subcommittee	2005	Reviewer
Black and Gold Day	2004	Guest Speaker
Meeting of Minds Undergraduate Conference Committee	2002, 2005, 2008	Member, Journal editor
Academic Computing Committee	2003-2005	Member
Health and Wellness Job Search Committee	2001-2002	Member

d. College of Arts and Sciences

Activity	Dates	Activity Role
Committee for Reappointment and Promotion	2008	Member
Committee for Instruction	2007 - 2008	Member
Bachelor of Liberal Studies Development Committee	2007 - Present	Member
Graduate Studies Committee	2004-2007	Member

e. Department Service

Activity	Dates	Activity Role
RPT Committee (Taku)	2008 - present	Chair
RPT Committee (Lombardo)	2008	Member
RPT Committee (Raman)	2007 - present	Member
RPT Committee (McGinnis)	2006 - 2008	Member
Psychology Computer Lab	2007 - present	Supervisor
Colloquium Committee	2003-2006	Member
Goals Committee	2000-2001	Member
Equipment Committee	2000-present	Member
Executive Committee	2000-2007	Member
Search Committee	2001, 2002, 2005 - 2007	Member
Psi Chi Advisor	2008 - present	Faculty Advisor
Psi Chi Meetings	2000-2007	Speaker
Graduate School Workshop	2005-2006	Presenter

COMPUTER EXPERIENCE:

Statistical Packages:  SPSS, SAS, BMDP, MINITAB

Programming Packages: E-Prime, Macromedia Director

Programming Languages: BASIC, Pascal, LISP, HTML/XML, Lingo, Javascript

PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS:

Member, Cognitive Science Society

Member, American Psychological Society

Member, Psychonomic Society