Jared Isaac Cortez

Status:

Headshot: 
Mentor: 
Dr. Anthony J. Ryals
Research Topic: 
Dependent upon Age and Diet in the Brains of C57B1/6 Wild
Abstract: 
First-responder (i.e., law enforcement) shooting situations require individuals to facilitate the urge to fire upon threatening targets while suppressing this urge for non-threatening targets. Previous research using a computerized shoot/don’t shoot task suggests that this decision-making process is prone to bias due to the increased likelihood of perceiving other-ethnicity individuals as threats (Correll et al., 2002). While it is assumed that response inhibition is one primary cognitive process involved in threat versus non-threat distinction, no known empirical work has linked known measures of inhibition with response patterns or errors in this task. I will be studying UNT undergraduates using a computerized version of the shoot/don’t shoot task in combination with additional tests of executive inhibition (i.e., Stroop, flanker, and go/no-go tasks) to correlate performance and response bias across measures. This will provide important evidence for or against the role of cognitive control in threat perception and related biases (Correll, Urland, & Ito, 2006).
Alma Mater: 
B.S. Psychology | University of North Texas 2019