The Perception lab is a 3-room suite that is designed for research in perception and human performance. The lab is equipped to conduct a variety of reseach projects in visual attention and perception. Recent projects have investigated the effects of presentation format on working memory. We compare participants recall of material presented as pictures, spoken words and printed words. These findings contribute to our understanding of working memory by identifying the influence of format, modality, and span on processing and storage components of a dual task. The results have implications for both Web-based and classroom instruction. Web-based education materials often adopt a mix of presentation formats to enhance the salience of the information. However because of the scarcity of research evidence on multimedia effects, the design of the material is often based on the programming skills of the web developer rather than effective learning strategies. The findings of our studies, so far, suggest that the most effective combination of presentation techniques include pictures and spoken material. Some basic understanding of presentation format and its effect on working memory, could help us design Web sites to enhance student retention and classroom performance.
A number of projects with chronic pain patients have also been conducted in the lab. We have worked with patients suffering from fybromyalgia and pain associated with the upper spine. We developed and validated a Neck Pain Scale and have run several studies evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy and Botox injections on chronic pain.
Copies of recent publications describing research work in the lab are available from my Web site.
The Virtual Communities project conducts research studies on employees’ emotional attachment to the organization such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and sense of community, how computer communication such as the internet and email affect employees’ emotional attachment to their organizations and how emotional attachment develops on virtual groups. Dr. Blanchard works with a team of undergraduate and graduate students on these projects. Because of the applied nature of this research, we often conduct our research in the “field”, we study real employees in real organizations as well as “real” virtual groups.” We conduct survey research as well as some qualitative, interview research. Information about two of our current projects is described below:
Sense of Virtual Community
This series of studies examines how people develop feelings of belonging, identity, influence and attachment, that is, a “sense of community” online. We survey members of active virtual communities asking questions about their behaviors online, their perceptions of other members, individual personality traits and their feelings about the group. We are going to be expanding this research to look at how sense of virtual community affects other positive group aspects such as trust among members of the group. We are looking at both social as well as professional virtual groups.
Organizational Commitment and Organizational Sense of Community
What do employees feel about the organization they work for and their employees? Is their organization just a place they go to get a paycheck or do they feel like they are part of a family at work? This series of studies examines employees’ emotional attachment to their organizations. We are studying how much organizational commitment and sense of community are related and are different. We will be conducting survey research as well as potentially developing a new measure of sense of community at work. This will involve a literature review as well as surveying employees’ to understand their feelings.
The Human Computer Interaction is a research lab investigating novel ways for people to
interact with computers, and through computers with their environments.
The lab is located in the Software and Information Systems department in
330A Woodward Hall.
Current Research Title: Privacy and Sharing in Online Social Communities
Online social communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr are experiencing tremendous user growth, with at least 84% of Internet user involvement. Users of these communities share large amounts of personal information to build stronger social relationships, yet put their privacy and identity at risk by their disclosures. We are investigating how people are sharing and protecting their information in online social communities in order to improve the privacy mechanisms and reduce the risks of participating while still maintaining the benefits of these communities.
[More Information]
Celine Latulipe--Human Computer Interaction Lab
Current Research Title : Visual Feedback as Spatial Memory Cues in Digital Photo Manipulation
Description:
The symTone application allows people to edit digital photos using two hands (controlling two computer mice). The users control the position and size of a rectangle (the ToneZone) that is super-imposed over the photo. By adjusting the rectangle, the image is modified. I hypothesize that the rectangle acts in two ways: to facilitate motor coordination between the two hands and as a spatial memory cue during image exploration. The latter idea is that the rectangle acts as a memory cue so that while exploring possible image modifications the user can quickly return the rectangle to a configuration where the image looked good.
This project involves designing and running user studies to test this hypothesis by isolating the two effects of the ToneZone rectangle (the motor manipulation and the spatial memory cue effects).
The focus of the lab is the cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology of cognitive control processes that modulate the more specific processes employed in performing cognitive tasks. For example, cognitive control processes might work to make the perceptual and linguistic processes involved in reading a word more efficient, or they might work to perform a mental reconfiguration of goals and strategies during a switch from one mental task to another. The lab has a 40 channel EEG system for recording ERPs (event-related potentials that reflect the average brain electrical activity, as measured from outside the head, following presentation of a stimulus event), and 2 cognitive testing stations for measuring response times during performance of cognitive tasks.
One line of research in the lab involves examining the cognitive control processes that operate during a switch from one cognitive task to another. The question of interest is the extent to which cognitive control processes can completely inhibit the processes associated with performance of the prior switched-from task. We have developed a behavioral measure that assesses the extent to which aspects of the switched-from task have been inhibited and have conducted a series of experiments that measure response time and percent correct to examine this prior-task inhibition. We are looking forward to a new series of experiments that will assess ERPs during task switching.
Other recent lines of research in the lab have looked at cognitive control processes during the Stroop color naming task (assesses the ability to deal with conflicting information), meditation and cognitive control, and the role of cognitive control processes during preferential choice tasks (e.g., Do you prefer car A or car B?).The focus of the lab is the cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology of cognitive control processes that modulate the more specific processes employed in performing cognitive tasks. For example, cognitive control processes might work to make the perceptual and linguistic processes involved in reading a word more efficient, or they might work to perform a mental reconfiguration of goals and strategies during a switch from one mental task to another. The lab has a 40 channel EEG system for recording ERPs (event-related potentials that reflect the average brain electrical activity, as measured from outside the head, following presentation of a stimulus event), and 2 cognitive testing stations for measuring response times during performance of cognitive tasks.
One line of research in the lab involves examining the cognitive control processes that operate during a switch from one cognitive task to another. The question of interest is the extent to which cognitive control processes can completely inhibit the processes associated with performance of the prior switched-from task. We have developed a behavioral measure that assesses the extent to which aspects of the switched-from task have been inhibited and have conducted a series of experiments that measure response time and percent correct to examine this prior-task inhibition. We are looking forward to a new series of experiments that will assess ERPs during task switching.
Other recent lines of research in the lab have looked at cognitive control processes during the Stroop color naming task (assesses the ability to deal with conflicting information), meditation and cognitive control, and the role of cognitive control processes during preferential choice tasks (e.g., Do you prefer car A or car B?). [More Information]
Larry F. Hodges – Future Computing Lab
The Future Computing Lab supports research and teaching in a broad range of fields, including:
· Human-Computer Interaction
· Virtual Environments
· Computer Graphics
· Computer Vision
· Image Processing
· Artificial Intelligence
· Computer Game Design
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Research in this laboratory is motivated by the driving problem of using computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and image processing in multi-disciplinary applications. Projects include building realistic virtual humans for training, simulation, and learning; assistive technologies using intelligent systems, image processing, 3D human-computer interaction, , serious games for learning, and immersive virtual reality.
Possible projects for undergraduates include game design, building and evaluating virtual environments, and creating interactive virtual characters.
[More Information]
This project explores human reasoning and logical problem solving. Discoveries in this area are applied to the development of instructional computer program (Java applets) for teaching Deductive Logic (PHIL 2105). A number of component projects are involved, such as Interface Design, Error Identification, Student Modeling, Human Rationality, Automated Problem Solving, and Intelligent Tutoring. Student efforts in learning logic within PHIL 2105 produce a continuous source of data and opportunities for developing and testing cognitive theories of reasoning.
There are three projects currently being conducted in the Gerontology lab. One project is examining attitudes toward and images of aging and older adults. We are in the process of redesigning a survey that has been used to assess attitudes and has found age, gender, and racial group differences in those attitudes. We seek to include additional groups (e.g., Asian, Hispanic, and Native as well as African and White Americans) and to attempt to determine which factors are most important in the formation of negative attitudes previously obtained. A second project is examining changes in memory and cognition with advanced age. One part of this project is examining age differences in modality/format effects. Prior work shows that pictures and spoken words are remembered better than printed words and a part of this difference is due to an attenuation of attention for printed words. We are examining these factors in older adults who are already known to have fewer resources to devote to mental processing. A second part of this project seeks to examine adult age differences in creativity. The third project underway is an examination of age, gender, and ethnic group differences in dream content. This project is the first to compare dreams for all of these groups at the same time and uses the Hall and van de Castle (1996) system of content coding. Students working on this project are expected to learn that system.
An emerging literature suggests that poor sleep in children has
important consequences in terms of behavior and cognition. The problem
goes beyond being sleepy; lack of sleep or poor quality of sleep may
impact the development and functioning of the frontal cortex, thereby
impairing functions such as attention, impulsivity, planning, and
learning. Lost learning in children may impair not only their current
academic performance but continue to do so into the school years. This
project proposes to study sleep in children and its effect on their
physical, emotional/social, and cognitive readiness or performance. We
will assess sleep quality in children using a validated sleep
questionnaire filled out by a parent. Physical development will be
operationalized as body mass index (poor sleep is often associated with
under development or obesity). Parents and teachers will complete
checklists to assess the child's emotional, social, or cognitive
development. The student may also collect individual data on the
children.
Potential long-term effects of untreated sleep disorders are not
trivial. Some cognitive/behavioral/affective effects may not be
completely reversible. Sleep-related deficits in learning may keep
children from reaching their potential, may produce a mind set in
children similar to learned helplessness, and may lower the expectations
of significant others in the child's life. Sleep loss may produce
changes in experience-dependent cortical plasticity, concluding that
sleep in a young organism may have an important impact on brain
development. All of these possibilities argue for the diagnosis of
sleep disorders as early in life as is possible, preferably before
beginning formal schooling.
My current research focus is on the modulation of pain through cognitive and affective processes. Specifically, I am interested in both the behavioral and neuronal changes that occur when pain is manipulated through these mechanisms.
Ongoing project: Cognitive control of Pain
The goal of this project is to understand the degree to which different tasks change subjects’ perception of a painful stimulus. This project involves stimulating subjects with brief electrical pulses while they engage in one of three tasks. The subjects recall and re-experience a pleasurable memory, perform the Stroop task, and consciously attempt to control the perception of the stimulation.
Upcoming project: Emotion Induction paradigm development
The goal of this project is to develop effective emotion induction paradigms. Current paradigms do not effectively induce all emotional conditions. Example stimuli to be tested include self-selected pictures and music, video clips and imagery. These paradigms will be used in a variety of projects.
An ongoing research project involves analyzing EEG and P300 signals to identify the effects of different types of external stimuli (e.g., light, sounds, and temperature) on the activities of the human brain. The purpose of the project is to create a low-cost imaging system to study the brain’s functional activities. If successful, this project will facilitate the monitoring of the brain activities of healthy people as well as patients during their regular daily activities using a mobile processor of EEG.
In another project, fatigue during mental processing of information is studied by recording biological signals. The EEG/EMG/EOG set will be used to monitor and analyze the impact of fatigue on mental and physiological capabilities of people while doing tasks such as reading, listening, or pattern matching. The aim of this work is to improve work and learning environments and work schedules in order to prevent fatigue.
Dr Najarian’s lab is involved in a number of projects in biomedical signal processing, biomedical image processing, and bioinformatics. These projects include: measurement and analysis of evoked potentials, measurement and analysis of EMG, optimal processing and classification of fMRI, early detection of breast cancer from MRI, processing and classification of cell images, and identification of static and dynamic gene pathways.
The lab is equipped with the state-of-the-art PC’s and the measurement devices for recording of biomedical signals. The lab hosts 4 Ph.D. students, two M.Sc. students and three undergraduate students.