ASHA Application

Here is the essay that I wrote for the ASHA application, it is a hybrid of my application to graduate school and meeting the requirements of the ASHA application. I want to discuss my future research plans a little bit before I post it though...

I am not sure what I want to study. I know that I want to study language and that I want to use a multidisciplinary approach to studying. My research in college was what I believe to be a unique experience. I did everything in the research from reading the literature to designing the study, to running the experiments, to organizing the data, to running the analyses to finally writing it up and presenting it. I had my hand on every single part of the experiment from beginning to end. Here in graduate school it appears that that is not the case. I think because of that I should be able to attack a very large thesis question. I think because of the design of the beast, I should be able to have a multidisciplanary question which reaches from neuroscience to biology to psychology to speech-pathology. With a broad catch-all of language I think that I can conviably pull all of these departments together. I also want to incorporate imaging, some sort of disease/disorder model and computation modeling. So here is the grand idea...

I am interested in mapping out the mental lexicon including how language is processed, retrieved, stored and produced. By using imaging techniques I can find areas of the brain that are associated with different parts of language. Learning language, recognizing words, processing words, and producing words. Then using the lesion method, I can see how different parts of the brain contribute specifically to the different parts of language use production. These results should help in producing models of language which can be applied to patients who have difficulty with language such as aphasics and people with Parkinson's. Computational modeling will also be useful for describing the cognitive processes of normal language aquisition and production (diffusion model?).

I think that this would be a very exciting and large project which would require vast amounts of collaboration and help. I would start at the most basic level by just testing different language capacities of both normal and disordered patients while hopefully scanning them. With this technique I am receiving vast amounts of data, not just from the scans but the tasks themselves. Combining that with various models will also give another layer of information. Moving from there, I could look towards the lesion patients or those with neurodegenerative diseases. By moving towards the diseases I could begin to look towards the biology of language. Are certain proteins or neurochemicals needed for language? Otherwise I could start to move the other direction and look at what improves language skills, faster retrieval, faster production, better recognition, eaiser learning and begin to formulate plans for helping speech-pathologists.

I'm not sure if it is foolhardy to try this, or if it is even worth looking into. I am not sure if it is too big, too broad, if it has already been done, but it is something that I think is of great interest.
We'll see, now I just need to start doing some research and talking to some people.

Essay

One of the most exciting experiences a researcher can achieve is to make a discovery. At that moment of discovery, you are the only person in the world to have that bit of knowledge. Your discovery is something that you alone know and the rest of the world wants to know. This pursuit of discovery inspires me as I work towards becoming a neuroscience researcher. The mysteries of the brain provide some of the most fascinating unlocked enigmas and to be exploring these areas will challenges my unending curiosity.
The field of neuroscience is entering a very exciting time. Research is continually pushing the limits of knowledge and groundbreaking research is revealing many new mechanisms and ideas that were previously unknown. I believe in this type of environment or climate of research, there will be many new ideas and many problems trying to challenge our advancement. I want to pursue research in neuroscience because the field is continuously on the forefront of technological advancements and on the brink of human knowledge. It will be exciting and challenging to be a part of this, but also interesting to see the benefits that this research provides to fellow researchers and mankind. These reasons are why I wish to pursue a Ph. D. in neuroscience.
Through my introduction to neuroscience in my undergraduate studies at St. Olaf College, I have found research to be very fulfilling, but it has been the last two years of research in cognitive psychology, which has focused my interest in a few topics. In research, I was allowed the opportunity to find areas that interested me and with the help of my advisor, we developed studies and research paradigms in two areas.
The first year-long project investigated how spatial frequencies affected a person’s perception of gender. It was not until I began to work on this project that I knew that I had to become a researcher. These were some of the most frustrating and difficult experiences that I have dealt with in my education. However, they were also the most satisfying and educational. Guiding myself, with the help of my research advisor, I learned how to use many different computer programs, from Photoshop, to Psyscope, to a morphing program, I learned how to read, analyze and write journal articles and most importantly I learned how to design a project, run subjects, collect and analyze results and present these in both a written report and in presentation form for three conferences last spring. I realized that it is not necessarily the answer that is the most important outcome, but perhaps the journey that brought you to an answer, because the journey may have raised ten more question in the process.
In my senior distinction research, I am took this knowledge and applied it to a new topic, investigating the differences between semantic and repetition priming in a lexical decision task and using diffusion modeling to analyze the differences in the timing of the cognitive processes. It was through my experience in the research of my senior year that convinced me that when I begin work on my Ph. D. thesis that I would investigate language. In the neuroscience program, I have the opportunity to pursue three rotations, with the option for a fourth. I know that I will look to find researchers who are associated with language and language processing.
I believe that the conference would be an excellent opportunity for me to see the research that is occurring in the speech-language and hearing field. I would be able to meet fellow researchers and also have the opportunity to ask questions and think about what I want to direct my research towards. I would also be very excited to present the research that I have completed. Although the original goal of the research was to investigate the mental lexicon in non-disordered participants, it would be interesting to hear what speech-pathologists and others alike thought about how the results may be similar or different in disorder participants.
The specific title of the symposium is also of special interest to me. With my background in neuroscience and approach to language from the spectrum of neuroscience, I am interested in the neural regeneration and communication processes. Although I am not sure of the specific direction of my research or what I will eventually research for my thesis, I do have some broad ideas. I am interested in the psychological workings of the mental lexicon, how language is processed and affected by different brain structures in both visual and auditory perception. I hope to investigate how language is affected by different problems (lesions/neurological disorders) in the attempt to map the mental lexicon and language perceptual processes. To associate my broad interests in research, I hope to apply computational models to and functional and structural imaging to this approach. The applicability of the research, I think will extend to neurological diseases and communication disorders, in that we will be able to pinpoint and recognize what areas of damaging are disrupting what part of language production/comprehension.
Currently I am working with Dr. Jean K. Gordon investigating the relationship between word variables and reaction times of older and younger subjects in two separate tasks and also exploring the relationship between language and wisdom. By pairing with Dr. Gordon, I believe that I will be able to develop a research paradigm that is able to help me approach this question. Although I have not yet selected a thesis adviser, the collaborative nature of the University of Iowa, leads me to believe that if I do not select Dr. Gordon, that I know we will be able to collaborate in the future on work pertaining to my research goal. Our shared interest in language and her expertise with language disorders (aphasia) and the use of computational modeling will help greatly in my attempt to investigate language. I think that an important first step in this investigation will be the knowledge and the questions that I gain by attending this conference.