Category: Behavior/Psychology Page 16 of 28

Does Digital Healthcare Work?

On November 7, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Computers/Technology, Data, Lecture, Medicine

Wearable technologies like Fitbit have been shown to provide a short-term increase in physical activity, but long-term benefits are still unclear, even if recent studies on corporate wellness programs highlight the potential healthcare savings.

Luca Foschini, PhD is a co-founder and head of data science at Evidation Health, and a visiting research scientist at UCSB. Source: Network Science IGERT at UCSB.

To figure out the effects of these technologies on our health, we need ways to efficiently mine through the vast amounts of data and feedback that wearable devices constantly record.

As someone who has recently jumped on the Fitbit “band” wagon, I have often wondered about what happens with all the data collected from my wrist day after day, week after week.

Luca Foschini, a co-founder and head of data science at Evidation Health, recently spoke at Duke’s Genomic and Precision Medicine Forum where he explained how his company uses these massive datasets to analyze and predict how digital health interventions — Fitbits and beyond — can result in better health outcomes.

California-based Evidation health uses real-life data collected upon authorization from 500,000-plus users of mobile health applications and devices. This mobile health or “mHealth” data is quickly becoming a focus of intense research interest because of its ability to provide such a wealth of information about an individual’s behavior.

Foschini and Evidation Health have taken the initiative to design and run clinical studies to show the healthcare field that digital technologies can be used for assessing patient health, behavioral habits, and medication adherence, just to name a few.

Foschini said that the benefits of mobile technologies could go far beyond answering questions about daily behavior and lifestyle to formulate predictions about health outcomes. This opens the door for “wearables and apps” to be used in the realm of behavior change intervention and preventative care.

Foschini speaks at Duke’s Genomic and Precision Medicine Forum

Foschini explains how data collected from thousands of individuals wearing digital health trackers was used to find a associations between activity tracking patterns and weight loss.

Evidation Health is not only exploring data based on wearable technologies, but data within all aspects of digital health. For example, an interesting concept to consider is whether devices create an opportunity for faster clinical trials. So-called “virtual recruiting” of participants for clinical studies might use social media, email campaigns and online advertising, rather than traditional ads and fliers. Foschini said a study by his firm found this type of recruitment is up to twelve times faster than normal recruitment methods for clinical trials (Kumar et al 2016).

While Foschini and others in his field are excited about the possibilities that mHealth provides for the betterment of healthcare, he acknowledges the hurdles standing in the way of this new approach. There is no standardization in how this type of data is gathered, and greater scrutiny is needed to ensure the reliability and accuracy of some of the apps and devices that supply the data.

amanda_cox_100 Post by Amanda Cox

Nature vs. Nurture: Predicting Our Futures

By Meg Shieh

On November 4, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Faculty, Genetics/Genomics, Neuroscience

Sitting in The Connection at the Social Science Research Institute in Gross Hall was intimidating. I was surrounded by distinguished people: professors, visiting professors from distinguished universities, researchers, and postdocs, all of whom had gathered together to view a showing of the documentary, Predict My Future: The Science of Us.

Dr. Terrie Moffitt, a Duke professor. Image courtesy of Moffitt and Caspi.

Dr. Avshalom Caspi, a Duke professor. Image Courtesy of Moffitt and Caspi.

Predict My Future documents the work of Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, two Duke professors who study people in Dunedin, New Zealand. They have followed the lives of all the children born within a year in Dunedin for the last 40 years to measure genetics, personal habits, environment, jobs, physical attributes, and etc. The Dunedin Longitudinal Study is the largest study of its kind and offers deep insights into how children become adults.

The episode, “The Early Years,” first posed the questions, “Why do some people become successful and others become outcasts? Why are we the way that we are?” By tracking all of these personal factors and some behaviors, including risky sexual activities, criminal activities, and drinking and smoking habits, the Dunedin Longitudinal Study can answer these questions. The researchers can tell which children are likely to become “problem children,” “geniuses,” and so on, based on the child’s personality type.

Q&A Session After the Viewing of the Documentary. Image Courtesy of Duke SSRI and Taken By Shelbi Fanning.

The study first identified five different personality types in young children, and researchers discovered that the children’s’ personality types did not change in adulthood. The three personality types that are typically associated with doing well in life, having better health, having friends, and being more successful are: “well-adjusted,” “reserved,” and “confident.” The two personality types associated with having poorer quality of life in adulthood are “inhibited” and “undercontrolled.”

Then, the study identified other factors that lead to serious consequences later in life or simply predict futures. Children who experienced delays in walking and in talking were likely to have issues with brain development. Boys with these traits typically disliked school, did poorly in school, and were more likely to be involved in criminal activity.

The full house watching the documentary. Image Courtesy of Duke SSRI and Taken by Shelbi Fanning.

The amount of sleep children received between the ages of five and eleven would determine obesity in adulthood. Adults who received the least amount of sleep as children tended to be obese by age 32.

Schizophrenia, researchers discovered, starts developing in young children, not just adults as had previously been thought. About half of the 11-year-olds in the study who said they had seen or heard things that weren’t there had developed schizophrenia two decades later.

Watching more TV was associated with a higher likelihood of smoking and having anxiety. Regardless of IQ or environment, children who watched more TV were more likely to leave school without qualifications.

The important lesson the documentary emphasized was that having a good childhood is important. Warm, sensitive, stimulating, family-feeling invoking environments are great protective factors to risk factors.

Overall, this was a brilliant, stimulating, easy-to-understand documentary.

meg_shieh_100hed Post by Meg Shieh

An Expert’s Perspective on Mental Health

By Lola Sanchez-Carrion

On November 3, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Faculty, Field Research, Global Health

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Week and Depression Awareness Month, I interviewed Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, an associate research professor of Global Health in the Duke Global Health Institute whose research focuses on positive mental health, clergy health, and the integration of care within health systems.

In 2007, Proeschold-Bell founded the Clergy Health Initiative, a program developed to improve health outcomes among the clergy of North Carolina. In their first study, they performed a longitudinal survey of nine Methodist churches in North Carolina to determine the clergy’s health status. It was found that the clergy had a far higher obesity rate (41%) than the rest of North Carolina (29%). High rates of chronic disease associated with overweight/obese individuals were also present. The most interesting find, though, was that depression rates were double that of the regional average. Why?

Proeschold-Bell has conducted research in Kenya, Tanzania, Peru, India, and the U.S.

“Being the leader of an organization is difficult, says Proeschold-Bell. Churches are extremely underfunded and are constantly pressed for time. Pastors are expected to do all of the spiritual work that being a pastor entails, and also act as business managers for the church. But, thanks to donations from the Duke Endowment, Proeschold-Bell was able to develop three interventions to improve clergy health. Since then, she’s retrieved ten years of data that has allowed for further improvements in holistic health for the clergy of North Carolina.

When asked about depression specifically, Proeschold-Bell said that “the current model in place to treat depression does not work.” We focus strictly on treating the issue by mitigating its symptoms through an antidepressant, instead of pulling at the issue from multiple roots.

She says our efforts should be focused on increasing positive mental health. Positive mental health refers to the presence of positive emotions and good functioning (in both individual and social environments). Work being done by Corey Keyes at Emory has shown that individuals with high positive mental health are less likely to develop depression and chronic disease. By focusing our efforts towards improving one’s overall mental wellbeing, we can get individuals “ahead of the curve” and prevent them from even being depressed in the first place, says Proeschold-Bell.

Further research focusing on positive emotions has been conducted by Barbara Fredrickson at UNC, who suggests that positive emotions have been scientifically proven to increase people’s open-mindedness. Those with more positive emotions have been more willing to try new things and open up to other people, says Proeschold-Bell. These positive emotions connect greatly to one’s ability to be resilient, and there is research to be done in the overlap between possessing these emotions and being able to recover from situations of trauma and conflict that can be mentally straining.

To tackle mental health issues, we must look at them holistically and extensively. Not only do these issues need to be covered from all angles, but interventions need to be culturally competent and context-specific. Keeping these values in mind, will help improve global mental health outcomes.

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Post by: Lola Sanchez-Carrion

Economics and Health: The Biases Behind Our Decisions

By Lola Sanchez-Carrion

On October 21, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Business/Economics, Global Health, Lecture, Medicine

Eric Finkelstein of the the Duke Graduate Medical School in Singapore studies how economic principles might be used to improve individual healthcare.

At a talk last Friday, Finkelstein, who was selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the world’s most influential scientific minds of 2015, argued that the same biases that affect our economic decisions could also influence our healthcare choices, and that understanding these biases could help motivate individuals to live healthy active lives.

In theory, people should be able to make healthy choices, Finkelstein said. Under the utility maximization model, individuals have the ability to rationalize and recognize the benefits of taking particular actions for themselves. But often we are not rational beings, he said, and there are several “deviations” that steer us away from maximizing our utility.

One of these deviations is the “present bias” preference, which leads us to make decisions in the present that our future self will regret. He discussed a particular experiment in which people are asked to choose what they will eat in one week’s time: a candy bar or an apple. Most choose the apple, but after a week, when they were given the opportunity to reevaluate their choice and change it, most switch to the candy bar.

This experiment shows not only the dynamic, unpredictable nature of our decisions, but also highlights our tendency to overestimate the will power of our “future selves.”

Another interesting bias that prevents us from being rational is our probabilistic assessment bias, which describes our tendency to overestimate the probability of very unlikely events, while underestimating the probability of those that are likely. This bias directly relates to health and our tendency to ignore the possibility of suffering a detrimental health problem like a heart attack, when in reality it’s quite commonplace.

Eric Finkelstein’s research, which focuses on the intersection between economics and global health, has gained him renowned success nationally and abroad. Source: Duke NUS Medical School.

To understand how these biases might influence individuals suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness, Finkelstein and his medical team in Singapore conducted their own study on healthcare choices. In the experiment, both healthy and sick individuals were asked to identify what treatments they would prioritize if diagnosed with terminal cancer: level of pain, hours of care required, potential to extend life, cost of treatment and location of death.

Most healthy individuals said they would want whatever treatment was cheapest, but showed very little interest in investing in extending their life or selecting where they died. When sick patients were asked the same questions, on the other hand, they valued place of death (home was preferred) and survival time above everything else. Such information indicates just how difficult it is for us to predict where to invest in healthcare for cancer patients.

From this study and several others, Finkelstein concludes that we are not rational beings, but are instead irrational ones that feed off of biases and change our opinions constantly. But, he suggests that through the use of incentives, we can mediate these irrational biases and ultimately improve health outcomes.

Post by Lola Sanchez-Carrion

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Violence: Risk vs Protection Factors

By Meg Shieh

On October 17, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Lecture, Neuroscience

On Oct. 3, in place of a typical Interdisciplinary Discussion Course (IDC) for the Focus program, we were brought together in the White Lecture Hall on East to hear Dr. Jeremy G. Richman give a lecture on “Violence, Compassion, and the Brain”.

Dr. Jeremy G. Richman

Since his daughter Avielle was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Dr. Richman has been studying violence and the brain with the Avielle Foundation. Using his extensive research experience in neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology, Dr. Richman has been working with a team on understanding the risk and protective factors for violence.

Dr. Richman lecturing in the White Lecture Hall on East Campus

The brain is very complex, and its processes and connections are still very much veiled. As a result, The Avielle Foundation currently conducts research on understanding violence by “bridging biochemical and behavioral sciences” using functional MRI brain scans, biochemistry, and genetics and epigenetics.

Based on the research he has analyzed, Dr. Richman identified four types of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that are risk factors for violence: psychological, physical, sexual, and household dysfunction/neglect.

Interestingly enough, research has shown that physically abused children are not necessarily more likely to be arrested for a violence-related crime. While it can happen, the situation is complicated because there is more than one factor involved. Adverse childhood experiences typically lead to violence towards oneself. When someone has at least four ACEs, their risk for alcoholism increases seven-fold. When males have more than five experiences within the ACE categories, their risk for drug use increases by 46 times. The more ACEs experienced, the greater exponentially the percentage of lifetime history of attempted suicides.

Studies have shown that firearm access in the home “is associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.”

The debate of Nature vs. Nurture also comes into play. Humans have a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, also known as the Warrior Gene. MAOA is also associated with low dopamine levels. When males experience physical abuse and have low MAOA, the chance for them to have psychopathology increases. The interesting thing is that there is one main difference between a violent psychopath and a resilient leader: childhood experiences. A violent psychopath likely had an adverse childhood experience; the resilient leader had a nurturing childhood. Richman noted that studies involving neuroscience and psychology always have shortcomings because of the brain’s complexity. The brain’s processes and connections are still very much veiled.

Despite all these risk factors to violence, there are protective factors in place. One is less at risk when in a compassionate, kind, resilient, and connection-building environment with family and peers who embody these ideals. Healthy habits, good nutrition, and exercise help reduce stress, which in turn helps reduce the chances for violence.

Post by Meg Shieh meg_shieh_100hed

Walla Scores Grand Prize at 17th Annual Start-Up Challenge

By Karl Bates

On October 3, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Biomedical Engineering, Business/Economics, Computers/Technology, Data, Statistics

The finalists of Duke’s 17th Annual Start-Up Challenge have found time between classes, homework, and West Union runs to research and develop pitches aiming to solve real-world problems with entrepreneurship. The event, hosted last week at the Fuqua School of Business, featured a Trinity alum as the keynote speaker. Beating out the other seven start-up pitches for the $50,000 Grand Prize was Walla, an app founded by Judy Zhu, a Pratt senior.

Judy Zhu and the Walla team pose with their $50,000 check, which is giant in more ways than one.

Walla aims to create a social health platform for college students by addressing widespread loneliness and creating a more inclusive campus community. The app’s users post open invitations to activities, from study groups to pick-up sports, allowing students to connect over shared interests.

Walla is closely tied with Duke Medicine by providing data from user activity to medical researchers. User engagement is analyzed to supply valuable information on mental health in young adults to professionals. The app currently features 700 monthly active users, with 3000 anticipated within the next month, and many more as the app opens to other North Carolina colleges.

Tatiana Birgisson returned to Duke to talk about her own experiences creating a business while an undergrad that won the Start-Up Challenge in 2013. Birgisson’s venture, MATI energy drink, was born out of her Central Campus dorm room and, through the support of Duke I&E resources, became the major energy drink contender it is today, as a healthy alternative to Monster or Red Bull.

The $2,500 Audience Choice award went to Ebb, an app designed to empower women on their periods by keeping them informed of physical and emotional symptoms throughout the course of their cycles, and creating a community through which menstruating women can receive support from those they choose to share information with.

Tatiana Birgisson won the 2013 startup challenge with an energy drink brewed in her dorm room, now sold as MATI.

Other finalists included BioMetrix, a wearable platform for injury prevention; GoGlam, an application to connect working women with beauticians in Latin America; Grow With Nigeria, which provides engaging STEM experiences for students in Nigeria; MedServe; Tiba Health; Teraphic.

This year’s Start-Up Challenge was a major success, with innovative entrepreneurs coming together to share their projects on changing the world. Be sure to come out next year; I’ll post an invite on Walla!

devin_nieusma_100 Post by Devin Nieusma

How to Get a Lemur to Notice You

By Robin Smith

On September 22, 2016

In Animals, Behavior/Psychology, Faculty, Lecture, Lemurs, Students

Duke evolutionary anthropology professor Brian Hare studies what goes on in the minds of animals.

Duke professor Brian Hare remembers his first flopped experiment. While an undergraduate at Emory in the late 1990s, he spent a week at the Duke Lemur Center waving bananas at lemurs. He was trying to see if they, like other primates, possess an important social skill. If a lemur spots a piece of food, or a predator, can other lemurs follow his gaze to spot it too?

First he needed the lemurs to notice him. If he could get one lemur to look at him, he could figure out if other lemurs then turn around and look too. In similar experiments with monkeys and chimps, oranges had done the trick.

“But I couldn’t get their attention,” Hare said. “It failed miserably.”

Hare was among more than 200 people from 25 states and multiple countries who converged in Durham this week for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Duke Lemur Center, Sept. 21-23, 2016.

Humans look to subtle movements in faces and eyes for clues to what others are thinking, Hare told a crowd assembled at a two-day research symposium held in conjunction with the event.

If someone quickly glances down at your name tag, for example, you can guess just from that eye movement that they can’t recall your name.

We develop this skill as infants. Most kids start to follow the gaze of others by the age of two. A lack of interest in gaze-following is considered an early sign of autism.

Arizona State University graduate student Joel Bray got hooked on lemurs while working as an undergraduate research assistant in the Hare lab.

“Gaze-following suggests that kids are starting to think about the thoughts of others,” Hare said. “And using where others look to try to understand what they want or what they know.”

In 1998 Hare and researchers Michael Tomasello and Josep Call published a study showing that chimpanzees and multiple species of monkeys are able to look where others are looking. But at the time not much was known about cognition in lemurs.

“When you study dogs you just say, ‘sit, stay,’ and they’re happy to play along,” Hare said. Working at the Duke Lemur Center, eventually his students discovered the secret to making these tree-dwelling animals feel at home: “Lemurs like to be off the ground,” Hare said. “We figured out that if we just let them solve problems on tables, they’re happy to participate.”

Studies have since shown that multiple lemur species are able to follow the gaze of other lemurs. “Lemurs have gone from ignored to adored in cognitive research,” Hare said.

Ring-tailed lemurs are among several species of lemurs known to follow the gaze of other lemurs. The ability to look where others are looking is considered a key step towards understanding what others see, know, or might do. Photo by David Haring, Duke Lemur Center.

Ring-tailed lemurs are among several lemur species known to follow the gaze of other lemurs. The ability to look where others are looking is considered a key step towards understanding what others see, know, or might do. Photo by David Haring, Duke Lemur Center.

Robin Smith Post by Robin A. Smith

“Gastronauts” Decode Gut-Brain Communication

By Kara Manke

On September 12, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Faculty, Lecture, Medicine, Neuroscience, Students

We like to think of our brains as the ultimate commanders-in-chief, dictating each and every heartbeat and muscle twitch within our bodies.

But our loopy insides may have a lot more say than we realize.

Healthy mucosal cells in the human stomach, magnified. (credit: Nephron)

“Not only does the brain send information to the gut, but the gut sends information to the brain,” said Michael Gershon, professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University. “And much of that we don’t yet understand.”

Gershon was one of nearly 200 scientists gathered at Duke last Friday for Gastronauts, a symposium exploring how our twisty, slimy guts and our twisty, slimy brains communicate with each other. By decoding the cellular and molecular messaging behind this gut-brain chatter, these researchers hope to gain insight into a wide array of modern health challenges, from obesity to Alzheimer’s.

Scientists gathered in the Trent Semans Great Hall for the Gastronauts poster session

Nearly 200 scientists gathered in the Trent Semans Great Hall Sept. 9 for Gastronauts, sponsored by the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.

Even if you sever all nerve connections between the brain and the gut, Gershon explained, your digestive tract will still carry on all that squeezing and acid-secreting necessary to digest food. The gut’s ability to ‘direct its own traffic’ led Gershon to dub the gut’s nervous system our “Second Brain.”

“The brain in the head deals with the finer things in life like religion, poetry, politics, while the brain in the gut deals with the messy, dirty, disgusting business of digestion,” Gershon said.

Our head brain and our gut brain talk to each other via long nerve fibers, such as a bundle of nerve cells called the vagus nerve that links the central nervous system to our abdominal organs, or via chemical signals, such as the neurotransmitter serotonin. Talks throughout the day delved into different aspects of these interactions – from how eating sugar can change our perception of taste to how the make-up of our gut microbiome might influence neural connectivity in the brain.

Our twisty loopy intestines can operate independently of our brains.

Duke professor Warren Grill presented his latest research on electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve. In projects led by graduate student Nikki Pelot and senior Eric Musselman, his group is building computer models to simulate the effects of electrical pulses on individual nerve cells within the vagus. These models might allow researchers to design devices to specifically block electrical signals going to the gut, a treatment that has been shown to help with obesity, Grill said.

And though we may think of the gut as the second brain, we should all remember that it came first, Duke professor Diego Bohórquez reminded the audience in the opening remarks.

“I like to say the gut is actually the first brain,” said Bohórquez. “If you go back to seafloor organisms, that was the first nervous system that was assembled.”

Post by Kara Manke

Beauty is in the Ear of the Beholder Too

By Karl Bates

On August 10, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Business/Economics, Guest Post

Just the suggestion that an African-American person is of mixed-race heritage makes that person more attractive to others, research from Duke University concludes.

Reece_image This holds true even if the people in question aren’t actually of multiracial heritage, according to the peer-reviewed study, published in the June 2016 issue of Review of Black Political Economy.

The simple perception of exoticism sways people to see multiracial blacks as better-looking, says study author Robert L. Reece, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Duke.

“Being exotic is a compelling idea,” Reece says. “So people are attracted to a certain type of difference. It’s also partially just racism – the notion that black people are less attractive, so being partially not-black makes you more attractive.”

Reece used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. He examined the results of in-person interviews of 3,200 black people conducted by people of varying races. The interviewees were asked a series of questions that included their racial backgrounds. The questioners then ranked each person’s attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least attractive and 5 being the most attractive. The interviewees who identified as mixed race were given an average attractiveness rating of 3.74; those who identified as black were given a 3.47 score – a statistically significant difference that points to the power of perception, Reece says. (The study controlled for a number of factors such as gender, age, skin tone, hair color and eye color)

“Race is more than we think it is,” he says. “It’s more than physical characteristics and ancestry and social class. The idea that you’re a certain race shapes how people view you.”

And attractiveness matters. Previous research has drawn correlations between physical beauty and professional success.

Robert Reece is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Duke.

Reece’s findings bolster a viewpoint that lighter-skinned blacks are considered more physically striking than their darker-skinned counterparts. But his research also found that blacks with darker skin who identified as mixed-race were considered better looking than those with lighter skin who identified simply as black. This further emphasizes the power of suggestion, Reece says; being told a person is of mixed race – regardless of what that person looks like – makes them appear more attractive.

“It’s a loaded cognitive suggestion when you say ‘I’m not just black, I’m also Native American, for example,” Reece says. “It changes the entire dynamic.”

Reece tackled this topic to examine the connection between multiraciality and “color,” he says.

“People tend to assume that historical multiraciality is at least partially responsible for the broad range of color among black people,” he says. “I’ve even noticed some people in black communities casually using the terms “mixed” and “light skinned” interchangeably. So I wanted to begin an empirical investigation into the contemporary links between the two and how they combine to shape people’s life experiences. Attractiveness is one part of that.”

Guest post by Eric Ferreri

Curiosity Takes Center Stage at Visible Thinking 2016

By Kara Manke

On April 22, 2016

In Behavior/Psychology, Neuroscience, Science Communication & Education, Students

Whether traipsing through the Duke Forest in search of a specific species of moss, using tiny scissors to dismember fruit fly larvae, or spicing up learning styles with celebrity memes and puppies, the quest for knowledge has led Duke students to some interesting pastimes.

Inquisitive students shared their research stories with peers at Visible Thinking 2016

On April 20, those inquisitive students and their faculty mentors gathered to share their stories at Visible Thinking 2016, the annual poster session showcasing undergraduate research from across Duke’s campus.

More than 130 presentations extended to all three floors of the Fitzpatrick/CIEMAS Atrium and featured research subjects spanning from monkey flowers and color-changing chemicals to cardinal numbers and the death of Odysseus.

“As researchers, we are all working on problems that we find fascinating,” said Nina Sherwood, associate professor of the practice in the biology department and advisor to two of the student presenters. “There’s an appeal to seeing others get bitten by the same research bug and feeling that same excitement!”

Over 130 posters lined all three levels of the Fitzpatrick/CIEMAS atrium during Visible Thinking on Wednesday.

Duke junior Ben Brissette’s passion to help people with mental and physical disabilities couldn’t be contained in just one project, so he did two.

The neuroscience major split his time between Sherwood’s biology lab, where he bred fruit flies and dissected their babies in search of nervous system abnormalities, and the library, where he surveyed recent literature on special education reform.

Brissette said the two approaches – one quantitative and reductionist, the other qualitative and complex – gave him a more nuanced perspective on the issue of disability.

And he had to learn to take each at its own pace.

“With a literature review, if you want to read for forty hours straight you can,” he said. “But if you are working with flies, you abide by their schedule.”

Brissette wasn’t the only student pulling double duty on Wednesday. Junior Logan Beyer bounced between two posters as well; one on her psychology research, examining differences the brain’s response to noise in typical children and children with autism spectrum disorder, and the other on her work with the Thompson Writing Program, designing a website to help students with learning disabilities tackle the writing process.

Two students ponder a research question during a quiet moment at the event.

Junior Abi Amadin became curious about her research subject while entering data for a large survey on stress as part of her work study position in the Department of Community and Family Medicine. What caught her eye was a measure called the household Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale CHAOS. Chaos in the home is a factor that can negatively impact childhood development.

So Amadin asked if she could analyze some of the data for herself, and found some interesting results: in the families surveyed, household measured chaos was correlated not with income or the number of people in a household, as expected, but with the number of children in the household.

“It was interesting to see the process that you go through in research – first posing a question, and then figuring out how to analyze it.” said Amadin. “I definitely learned a lot.”

According to Sherwood, students aren’t the only ones who learn from the experience.

“Undergraduates researchers are great because they bring fresh eyes and a fresh outlook,” Sherwood said. “From them we get some questions that are naïve, and others that are quite profound, but both force us to think and talk about our work in a bigger context.”

Kara J. Manke, PhD

Post by Kara Manke