Teresa Treat

Teresa Treat is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa. Her research integrates clinical psychology with cognitive science, focusing on sexual aggression prevention, social perception, disordered eating, and psychometrics.

• Education: PhD from Indiana University (2000)

Her work examines cognitive mechanisms underlying sexual aggression risk, including attentional biases, memory deficits, and social norm misperceptions. She has developed computerized prevention programs combining cognitive training with motivational interviewing to address sexual aggression, risky sex, and heavy drinking among college men.

Recent publications analyze sexual perception accuracy, cognitive processing of affective cues, and health behavior misjudgments. Her lab employs signal detection theory, eye-tracking, and computational modeling to study these processes.

Projects include NIAAA-funded studies on alcohol’s impact on visual attention and NIH-funded development of protective behavioral strategies. Collaborators include Drs. Corbin (ASU), Viken (IU), and McFall (IU).