Last week, in morning meeting, there was a presentation about a study of the framing effect. This effect describes a cognitive bias, where presenting the same options in different formats can alter people's decisions. This effect appears to have a greater effect on people who are inconsistent with their choices and whether the question is framed in loses/gains. This is very prevalent in every day life. Think about being presented with the choice to choose this route or that one, this type of meat or that one, should I try to buy this stock or that one, it goes on and on. It seems as though this effect is one of the best tools in the arsenals of lawyers, advertising companies and politicians. By framing an argument, a brand or a policy in certain ways, perhaps you are able to persuade people to think one way or another.
Here's an example...
A train is driving down a track, at a junction in the track there are two problems. On one track five people are tied down to the track and on the other track there is one person. You are there and next to a lever which you can throw to change or not change the course of the train (originally heading for the five people).
The two propositions are worded in the following ways...
1. You can throw the switch and save five people
2. You can throw the switch and kill one person
Although it is the same in both outcomes, people responded more positively to option 1.
The study that was proposed, would investigate framing in both normal and VMPC lesioned patients. The framing effects were broken into 6 different types of framing effects (e.g. Goal, Moral, Monetary). The researchers hypothesized that the VMPCs would differ from normals in there susceptibility to framing effects. With VMPCs, there is evidence of higher risk taking behavior and dysfunctional decision making behavior. It may be the case that the VMPCs may be more susceptible in certain framing situations and less in others.
They also proposed taking reaction times of the decisions. All though hard to measure, I think that it will be good to take into account both fast and slow reaction times. With fast reaction times, a situation is not being fully considered, while with a slow reaction time, the situation may be being thought out too much.
I can't remember the overall goal of the research, but I know that it is tied to moral reasoning. That's all for now
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Blocked Cyclic Naming (Semantic Category Interference)
This effect reflects the finding that for naming, participants are slower when naming pictures out of a sequence of items from the same semantic category than from different categories. The naming of an object or a picture is a multi-step series of mental operations. If naming a dog, you must first recognize it and decide how you want to refer to that object. This part of the process is called conceptual preparation. You must then focus on the particular mental item ("lemma") in you mental lexicon, which is under competition of semantically related items. The operation of lexical selection is next, and you must access the selected item's form information ("phonological code"). You then syllabify the word by composing it syllables from the segments, this is the processs of "phonological encoding." For each of these syllables you access a stored motor instruction ("gestural score"). Finally you execute the gestures with overt speech as output. This is known as the core processing stages of the production of words (Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer, 1999).
Cumulative interference for word retrieval by prior retrieval of other members of the same semantic category is similar to an inhibition being caused by these related members. An experiement by Howard et al. (2005) indicates that this inhibition effect can only occur if the spoken word production has three properties, competition, priming and semantic activation. Competition can be implemented through eithe lateral inhibition between candidates or a decision criterion. The priming of previously presented items would persist over time, even when other stimuli are inbetween the targets. The stregthening mapping can be from either semantics or lexical units. Shared activation refers to the activation through connected nodes in a semantically related network being activated. In the experiment, the investigators were able to examine the extent to which there are cumulative effects of semantic competitor priming.. The picture naming latency is slowed by an additional 30 ms for each preceding semantial
Maess, et al. (2002) attempted to distinguish the neuronal correlates of lexical access by using the phenomenon of blocked cyclic naming and MEG recording to note where in the brain, this effect took place. Results demonstrated that the left temporal region supports the processes underlying the semantic interference effect. A previous investigation had demonstrated that the time window of between 150-275 msec post picture onset was the core process of lemma selection. The time window of the current study for the activation of the left temporal region fits this same time frame.
So what does this all mean? In the present study that I am investigating, subjects were asked to name 400 pictures. They were also participants in an auditory lexical decision task in which they were to decide whether a word they heard was a real word or not. I coded these words into semantic categories. In the 400 word naming project there were 5 semantic categories, 3 large ones (animals, tools, and food)and 2 well defined but smaller ones (body parts and instruments). The reaction times of the participants were than regressed against the order of the items in the specific semantic categories. In the presence of other word variables the order of the categories only had an effect in the one group of participants. When the order of the semantic categories is looked at by itself, there is a huge effect of order, demonstrated by a 1.5 ms slowing for successive trials.
This is an interesting effect because you would think that the higher activation of the related targets would lead to a faster reaction time. However, this activation appears to be competitive and inhibitory. Perhaps it is the fact that when a word is being searched out, it has to enter the "search mechanism" with no previous activation. So if I name tiger which activates lion and then am asked to name lion, my mental lexicon has to actually go through a process of finding lion, seeing that it is activated, deactivating it and then go through the normal process.
Cumulative interference for word retrieval by prior retrieval of other members of the same semantic category is similar to an inhibition being caused by these related members. An experiement by Howard et al. (2005) indicates that this inhibition effect can only occur if the spoken word production has three properties, competition, priming and semantic activation. Competition can be implemented through eithe lateral inhibition between candidates or a decision criterion. The priming of previously presented items would persist over time, even when other stimuli are inbetween the targets. The stregthening mapping can be from either semantics or lexical units. Shared activation refers to the activation through connected nodes in a semantically related network being activated. In the experiment, the investigators were able to examine the extent to which there are cumulative effects of semantic competitor priming.. The picture naming latency is slowed by an additional 30 ms for each preceding semantial
Maess, et al. (2002) attempted to distinguish the neuronal correlates of lexical access by using the phenomenon of blocked cyclic naming and MEG recording to note where in the brain, this effect took place. Results demonstrated that the left temporal region supports the processes underlying the semantic interference effect. A previous investigation had demonstrated that the time window of between 150-275 msec post picture onset was the core process of lemma selection. The time window of the current study for the activation of the left temporal region fits this same time frame.
So what does this all mean? In the present study that I am investigating, subjects were asked to name 400 pictures. They were also participants in an auditory lexical decision task in which they were to decide whether a word they heard was a real word or not. I coded these words into semantic categories. In the 400 word naming project there were 5 semantic categories, 3 large ones (animals, tools, and food)and 2 well defined but smaller ones (body parts and instruments). The reaction times of the participants were than regressed against the order of the items in the specific semantic categories. In the presence of other word variables the order of the categories only had an effect in the one group of participants. When the order of the semantic categories is looked at by itself, there is a huge effect of order, demonstrated by a 1.5 ms slowing for successive trials.
This is an interesting effect because you would think that the higher activation of the related targets would lead to a faster reaction time. However, this activation appears to be competitive and inhibitory. Perhaps it is the fact that when a word is being searched out, it has to enter the "search mechanism" with no previous activation. So if I name tiger which activates lion and then am asked to name lion, my mental lexicon has to actually go through a process of finding lion, seeing that it is activated, deactivating it and then go through the normal process.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
match.edu
This morning in morning meeting, Tim Koscik and Amy Belfi presented work on an investigation into mate selection. The prevailing theory behind the investigation is one of evolutionary background. Based on males and females sexual limitations/resources, to increase or maximize their reproductive sucess, they should look for, emphasize or maximize certain characteristics. To maximize the number of offspring, males and females adopt different strategies. For males, they should maximize the number of women that they sleep with and those women should be young and healthy, as it assumed that they are more fertile and able to have children. For women, as the investment in having a child is much greater, it is necessary to be able to take care of and raise the child(ren) after they are born. In this case, women should focus on the resources that the male partner has, so that they are able to raise the child.
Today, this evolutionarily based theory is investigated in psychology and other disciplines. Males have been found to emphasize attractiveness, high WTH (waist to hip ratio) and low BMI while women have focused on resources (money, education, profession. While these findings vary between studies and also the goal of the relationships that the participants were questioned on, they are fairly general findings.
The goal of the research as I understand it is to investigate whether normal and brain damaged people follow this evolutionarily based urge for mate selection. The researchers are controlling the "attractiveness" and "resources" of the stimuli and asking participants to choose between to maniquines with dating profiles in three different relationship types.
In the study, the paradigm is set up similar to a dating website. The participants fill out questionaires which develop a "dating profile" for them. There are measurements taken of the participants shoulder, chest, waist, hip and ring to index finger ratio. The participants are then asked to choose between two profiles which vary in four variables. They are asked to choose between them based for a 1. sexual relationship 2. long-term relationship 3. having kids.
After choosing between the many different matches of profiles, they are asked to fill-out quetionaires about their dating history and preferences and a hormone survey.
The hypothesis is that the brain damaged patients (VMPC and amygdala) will not follow this evolutionary basis while the Superior temporal sulcus patients (body perception problems) will judge the body attractiveness differently than the other subjects.
It is an interesting study, however, I think that there are a lot of things that are not being controlled for that are going to influence the study. People take mate selection very seriously, even in a laboratory setting. I think that people will make inferences from the infomation that is presented to them and make their decisions based on information which is not presented directly in the experiment. I also wonder how much a person's preference will change between the relationship types. It will be interesting to see.
Today, this evolutionarily based theory is investigated in psychology and other disciplines. Males have been found to emphasize attractiveness, high WTH (waist to hip ratio) and low BMI while women have focused on resources (money, education, profession. While these findings vary between studies and also the goal of the relationships that the participants were questioned on, they are fairly general findings.
The goal of the research as I understand it is to investigate whether normal and brain damaged people follow this evolutionarily based urge for mate selection. The researchers are controlling the "attractiveness" and "resources" of the stimuli and asking participants to choose between to maniquines with dating profiles in three different relationship types.
In the study, the paradigm is set up similar to a dating website. The participants fill out questionaires which develop a "dating profile" for them. There are measurements taken of the participants shoulder, chest, waist, hip and ring to index finger ratio. The participants are then asked to choose between two profiles which vary in four variables. They are asked to choose between them based for a 1. sexual relationship 2. long-term relationship 3. having kids.
After choosing between the many different matches of profiles, they are asked to fill-out quetionaires about their dating history and preferences and a hormone survey.
The hypothesis is that the brain damaged patients (VMPC and amygdala) will not follow this evolutionary basis while the Superior temporal sulcus patients (body perception problems) will judge the body attractiveness differently than the other subjects.
It is an interesting study, however, I think that there are a lot of things that are not being controlled for that are going to influence the study. People take mate selection very seriously, even in a laboratory setting. I think that people will make inferences from the infomation that is presented to them and make their decisions based on information which is not presented directly in the experiment. I also wonder how much a person's preference will change between the relationship types. It will be interesting to see.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Moral Behavior
Today in morning meeting, Brad Thomas and Aaron Scherer presented a proposal for a study to investigate the moral behavior between VMPC patients and normals. The impetus for the study came from a social psych experiment in which participants where randomly assigned to three groups. In one group, the control, the members had to think about an average Tuesday. In the anger condition, the participants had to think about a time that they were angry. And in the last condition, the participants had to think about an instance of a moral violation. After the participants thought of their particular scenario, they were invited to participate in a 10 questions trivia test. There were two conditions, one with a reward of 20 cents per correct answer and the other with no reward. Be reminded that this study occurs on-line with participants participating in the safety of their own home. The way that participants were placed between the two conditions was through a flip of a coin, flipped by the participants themselves.
It is assumed that the with the flip of a coin you will land heads at a rate of 50% and tails at an equal rate. Deviation from chance (50%) would indicate some sort of outside influence. In the experiment there were the three conditions. In the control condition, 60% of the people ended up in the favorable condition, while in the anger condition a similar percentage of people were in the favorable condition. However, in the moral violation group over 75% of participants were in the favorable condition. A statistically significant and interesting result.
So what made these people cheat? That was the question and the supposed result of the study. These people are at home, receiving $4 dollars for initially participating in the study and then have the opportunity to make $2 more dollars if they end up in the favorable condition. Did the people in the moral violation group think that, "My cheating isn't as bad as that moral violation that I just thought of."
So the question is, how will the VMPCs perform in a similar situation. It has been shown before that these patients are impaired in decision making. It is the hypothesis of the researchers that there will be an increase in cheating behavior for developmental VMPC as compared to acquired VMPCs and normals.
The paradigm that they proposed was using a weighted die to decide what task patients would do. They proposed that 4 of the 6 side would be the unfavorable condition and 2 of the 6 favorable. However, with the weighted die, the favorable condition should only appear 2-4% of the time. A subject indicating a favorable toss would most likely be lying. However, a problem with studying these patients is the small sample size (n = ~10).
I proposed another way to investigate this question...
You have a task in which they are to complete some large number of difficult math problems, say 100.
It is assumed that these problems are difficult enough, yet small enough that they will get them wrong and also not take much time on them (they may even be multiple choice?).
The participants are then allowed to grade their answers with a flawed key. This is where the interesting part occurs. You could weight blocks of questions. Say you divide the test of 100 questions into 10 blocks of 10 questions and reward correct answers. However, with each block of 10 questions you increase the reward by a multiplier (perhaps also have a counterbalanced condition). In the first block the multiplier is small with incremental increases in the multiplier to the last block.
This design allows for investigation and interpretation from many facets. You can look at the raw number of instances of cheating, treating each problem as a moral situation (100 per subject!). You could also look at the blocks. Do people cheat at a higher rate in the blocks with higher reward as compared to the lower reward? Do the VMPC patients show consistently high levels of cheating across blocks? Similar to Chris's suggestion of the psychophysical measure, you could look to see if there is a certain break point in the multiplier which shows an increase in cheating. Does the break occur at 7 for normals as compared to 4 for VMPCs?
I don't know if this is actually showing morality or if people are just following the key...
I'm not sure, but it is something interesting to think about.
I think that this is an interesting but very difficult topic to study. Perhaps there will be some interesting follow ups and maybe some results.
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It is assumed that the with the flip of a coin you will land heads at a rate of 50% and tails at an equal rate. Deviation from chance (50%) would indicate some sort of outside influence. In the experiment there were the three conditions. In the control condition, 60% of the people ended up in the favorable condition, while in the anger condition a similar percentage of people were in the favorable condition. However, in the moral violation group over 75% of participants were in the favorable condition. A statistically significant and interesting result.
So what made these people cheat? That was the question and the supposed result of the study. These people are at home, receiving $4 dollars for initially participating in the study and then have the opportunity to make $2 more dollars if they end up in the favorable condition. Did the people in the moral violation group think that, "My cheating isn't as bad as that moral violation that I just thought of."
So the question is, how will the VMPCs perform in a similar situation. It has been shown before that these patients are impaired in decision making. It is the hypothesis of the researchers that there will be an increase in cheating behavior for developmental VMPC as compared to acquired VMPCs and normals.
The paradigm that they proposed was using a weighted die to decide what task patients would do. They proposed that 4 of the 6 side would be the unfavorable condition and 2 of the 6 favorable. However, with the weighted die, the favorable condition should only appear 2-4% of the time. A subject indicating a favorable toss would most likely be lying. However, a problem with studying these patients is the small sample size (n = ~10).
I proposed another way to investigate this question...
You have a task in which they are to complete some large number of difficult math problems, say 100.
It is assumed that these problems are difficult enough, yet small enough that they will get them wrong and also not take much time on them (they may even be multiple choice?).
The participants are then allowed to grade their answers with a flawed key. This is where the interesting part occurs. You could weight blocks of questions. Say you divide the test of 100 questions into 10 blocks of 10 questions and reward correct answers. However, with each block of 10 questions you increase the reward by a multiplier (perhaps also have a counterbalanced condition). In the first block the multiplier is small with incremental increases in the multiplier to the last block.
This design allows for investigation and interpretation from many facets. You can look at the raw number of instances of cheating, treating each problem as a moral situation (100 per subject!). You could also look at the blocks. Do people cheat at a higher rate in the blocks with higher reward as compared to the lower reward? Do the VMPC patients show consistently high levels of cheating across blocks? Similar to Chris's suggestion of the psychophysical measure, you could look to see if there is a certain break point in the multiplier which shows an increase in cheating. Does the break occur at 7 for normals as compared to 4 for VMPCs?
I don't know if this is actually showing morality or if people are just following the key...
I'm not sure, but it is something interesting to think about.
I think that this is an interesting but very difficult topic to study. Perhaps there will be some interesting follow ups and maybe some results.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Pain
I probably shouldn't be one to complain much about pain, but these last few days I have been especially sore from a combination of running, lifting weights and biking. There are a collection of oft mentioned phrase of mind over matter, no pain no gain and other motivational sayings in the weight room in the apartment that I now reside in. I think that it is funny how it takes little motivational posters to get people pumped up to lift weights. As if the reminder that, "No mortal was made to succeed without hard work" is going to help make me want to lift more weight. The combination of these phrases and my temporary roommates fascination with the MMA, have sparked some interest in the mechanisms of pain and the involvement of the brain. Watching some of those fights, it is unbelievable the pain and the damage that those competitors face in the octagon. Pain is often viewed as a topic that is hard to study, one that philosophers often point to when discussing subjective feelings and also the other minds problem. Does pain feel the same for me as it does for you? What causes my pain to be different than your pain?
We recognize the role of the brain in pain. It is almost undeniable even from the youngest age. Just watch as a small child falls down and scrapes their leg or something of the sort and how it doesn't bother them. Then seconds later an adult comes over to them to console them about their death defying injury and then the next thing you know, there is crying and tears everywhere. The focus of the attention on the injury caused a recognition and awareness of the pain.
There are many other examples of the brain's role in pain and injury, including phantom pain and psychogenic pain. Pain travels along two pathways, one is a sensory pathway which transmits the physical pain and the other is an emotional pathway which travels up the spinal cord to the amygdala and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC). So the experience to pain actually does have a negative emotional component to it. However, while this negative component can be an often very bad part of pain perception, leading to such problems as phantom pain and psychogenic pain, this mental component can also be harvested, cultivated and used as a weapon against pain.
In combination with fMRI, patients are able to actually view their pain. In a study, patients were asked to consciously increase their pain. When they did, an image of a flame on a screen became larger. Then the patients were asked to decrease their pain which caused the flame to decrease in size. Patients were able to reduce their pain by 30 - 40%. This demonstrates the power of biofeedback, mediation and other contemplative exercises. The ability to reflect and analyze how you think is a powerful tool to investigate your thoughts in all activities. Contemplative reflection is our only inbuilt tool for investigating the mind and one that is severely underused. It is something that begs the attention of scientific inquiry but at the same time something that science refuses to touch because of its inherent subjective qualities.
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We recognize the role of the brain in pain. It is almost undeniable even from the youngest age. Just watch as a small child falls down and scrapes their leg or something of the sort and how it doesn't bother them. Then seconds later an adult comes over to them to console them about their death defying injury and then the next thing you know, there is crying and tears everywhere. The focus of the attention on the injury caused a recognition and awareness of the pain.
There are many other examples of the brain's role in pain and injury, including phantom pain and psychogenic pain. Pain travels along two pathways, one is a sensory pathway which transmits the physical pain and the other is an emotional pathway which travels up the spinal cord to the amygdala and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC). So the experience to pain actually does have a negative emotional component to it. However, while this negative component can be an often very bad part of pain perception, leading to such problems as phantom pain and psychogenic pain, this mental component can also be harvested, cultivated and used as a weapon against pain.
In combination with fMRI, patients are able to actually view their pain. In a study, patients were asked to consciously increase their pain. When they did, an image of a flame on a screen became larger. Then the patients were asked to decrease their pain which caused the flame to decrease in size. Patients were able to reduce their pain by 30 - 40%. This demonstrates the power of biofeedback, mediation and other contemplative exercises. The ability to reflect and analyze how you think is a powerful tool to investigate your thoughts in all activities. Contemplative reflection is our only inbuilt tool for investigating the mind and one that is severely underused. It is something that begs the attention of scientific inquiry but at the same time something that science refuses to touch because of its inherent subjective qualities.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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.
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.
2009 Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award
I'm applying for the AHSA (American Speech-Language and Hearing Association) travel award to attend a conference in November in New Orleans. I am required to write a narrative biological sketch and a 1,000 word essay detailing my research goals and how attending the conference will enhance them. Attached here is the biographical sketch, soon to follow (later tonight) will be the essay.
Jake Kurczek is a 2009 graduate of St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) with a B.A. in psychology (Cum Laude with Distinction). In the summer of 2009, he began his work toward a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). In the summer of 2009, he is completing his first rotation of the Neuroscience program and his mentor is Dr. Jean K. Gordon. Jake is assisting Dr. Gordon with two on-going research projects. The first investigates what variables of words contribute to the ease or difficulty of word production and word recognition. This is accomplished with a auditory lexical decision task and an visual naming task. In each of the tasks the response time and the accuracy was recorded. These variables are analyzed (multiple regression and linear mixed effect models) against the independent variables of the words themselves to see what contributes to the response time and accuracy of the tasks.
His previous research work includes five studies in behavioral/cognitive neuroscience. In his junior year in college (2007/2008), he spent his time investigating the effects of spatial frequencies on people’s perception of gender. Two projects were developed from this overall investigation including, “Perceptual Adaptation Aftereffects in Cross-race Gender Identification” and “Evidence for Lower Level Processing of Human Gender.” In his senior year, he would begin work on three different research projects. The first was an analysis of the St. Olaf psychology department’s Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) through the use of questionnaires that he developed along with the psychology department with responses collected from the previous six years of psychology graduates. The second was a behavioral neuroscience research study which investigated ethanol’s anxiolytic effect on rats in the elevated plus maze as well as a lesion study which attempted to reproduce this axiolytic effect. The third study was his senior distinction project. This study was entitled, “Lexical decision and the diffusion model: An investigation into the mental lexicon.” First the effects of frequency and neighborhood density were investigated and modeled with the diffusion model as a pilot study. Two future studies were developed in which semantic and repetition priming were investigated in the lexical decision task and analyzed with the diffusion model. The purpose of the research was to find a possible/plausible explanation for the cognitive differences between the two different types of priming.
Jake Kurczek is a 2009 graduate of St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) with a B.A. in psychology (Cum Laude with Distinction). In the summer of 2009, he began his work toward a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). In the summer of 2009, he is completing his first rotation of the Neuroscience program and his mentor is Dr. Jean K. Gordon. Jake is assisting Dr. Gordon with two on-going research projects. The first investigates what variables of words contribute to the ease or difficulty of word production and word recognition. This is accomplished with a auditory lexical decision task and an visual naming task. In each of the tasks the response time and the accuracy was recorded. These variables are analyzed (multiple regression and linear mixed effect models) against the independent variables of the words themselves to see what contributes to the response time and accuracy of the tasks.
His previous research work includes five studies in behavioral/cognitive neuroscience. In his junior year in college (2007/2008), he spent his time investigating the effects of spatial frequencies on people’s perception of gender. Two projects were developed from this overall investigation including, “Perceptual Adaptation Aftereffects in Cross-race Gender Identification” and “Evidence for Lower Level Processing of Human Gender.” In his senior year, he would begin work on three different research projects. The first was an analysis of the St. Olaf psychology department’s Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) through the use of questionnaires that he developed along with the psychology department with responses collected from the previous six years of psychology graduates. The second was a behavioral neuroscience research study which investigated ethanol’s anxiolytic effect on rats in the elevated plus maze as well as a lesion study which attempted to reproduce this axiolytic effect. The third study was his senior distinction project. This study was entitled, “Lexical decision and the diffusion model: An investigation into the mental lexicon.” First the effects of frequency and neighborhood density were investigated and modeled with the diffusion model as a pilot study. Two future studies were developed in which semantic and repetition priming were investigated in the lexical decision task and analyzed with the diffusion model. The purpose of the research was to find a possible/plausible explanation for the cognitive differences between the two different types of priming.
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