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Campus Directory

FACULTY AND STAFF

Robert Torrence

Title:Adjunct Faculty
Office:Warde Academic Center
Phone:773-298-3478
Email:torrence@sxu.edu
Department:Psychology

Biography

Dr. Robert Torrence earned his Ph.D. in Psychology, with a focus on Cognitive Neuroscience, from Colorado State University in 2018. He obtained his M.S. from Northern Michigan University in 2015 and a B.A. from the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2013. He received additional research training as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Wayne State University. He joined the Psychology Division at SXU in 2019.

Dr. Torrence's research focuses on how recreational cannabis use effects emotional processing (e.g. attentional bias and awareness of emotional facial expressions and images). He has a background in using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and functional MRI (fMRI). Dr. Torrence also has an interest in studying emotional processing in anxiety (including PTSD) and depression related disorders.


Education

Ph.D. in Psychology
Colorado State University

Areas of Specialization

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Emotion
  • Cannabis
  • Anxiety

Courses Taught

  • PSYCH 311: Physiological Psychology
  • PSYCH 312: Perception
  • PSYCH 317: History of Psychology
  • PSYCH 303: Motivation

Presentations

Torrence, R. D., Troup, L. J., Rojas, D. C., & Carlson, J. M. (2018, November). Posterior-contralateral theta oscillations and N170 amplitudes in attentional bias to fearful faces. Poster Presentation at the Society for Neuroscience Conference, San Diego, California

Torrence, R. D., Davis, J., & Troup, L. (2017, March). The association between residual cannabis use and the P300 event related potential on emotion processing in subclinical depression. Poster Presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Convention, San Francisco, California.

Andrzejewski, J., Tulloss, T., Torrence, R. D., & Troup, L. (2017, March). The modulation of attentional emotion processing on the P300 event-related potential in high-anxiety and low-anxiety individuals. Poster Presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Convention, San Francisco, California.

Braunwalder, J., Metlay, J., Torrence, R. D., & Troup, L. (2017, March). Examining the effects of THC concentration on processing emotion. Poster Presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Convention, San Francisco, California.

Torrence, R. D., Andrzejewski, J., & Troup, L. (2016, March). Emotional processing in PTSD: An event-related potential study. Poster Presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Convention, New York, New York.

Publications

Torrence, R. D., Davis, J. E., Troup, L. J., & Carlson, J. M. (2019). Variability in human anterior insula gray matter volume predicts awareness for perithreshold backward masked fearful faces. Journal of Integrated Neuroscience.

Torrence, R. D., Rojas, D. C., & Troup, L. J. (2019). Awareness of emotional expressions in cannabis users: An event-related potential study. Frontiers in Psychology.

Troup, L. J., Torrence, R. D., & Andrzejewski, J. A. (2019). The effects of sex and residual cannabis use on emotional processing: An event-related potentials study. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology

Torrence, R. D., Rojas, D. C., & Troup, L. J. (2018). Residual effects of cannabis use on attentional bias towards fearful faces. Neuropsychologia.

Troup, L., Torrence, R. D., Andrzejewski, J., & Braunwalder, J. (2017). Effects of cannabis use and subclinical depression on the P3 event-related potential in an emotion processing task. Medicine, 96 (12).

Torrence, R. D. & Troup, L. J. (2017). Event-related potentials of attentional bias towards faces in the dot-probe task: A systematic review. Psychophysiology

Torrence, R. D., Wylie, E., & Carlson, J. (2017). The time-course for the capture and hold of visuospatial attention by fearful and happy faces. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 41(2), 139-153