Psychology Faculty Labs

Sentence Processing, Individual Differences, Literacy, and Eye-tracking (SPInDLE) Lab

Ariel James’s SPInDLE Lab focuses on measuring and explaining the variability in how adults comprehend sentences. To do this, her lab combines psycholinguistic experiments (comparing reading times or eye movements related to different kinds of sentences) with psychometric work (assessing the reliability and validity of psychological measurements). Specific approaches include the Visual World Paradigm (eye-tracking), self-paced reading, and item response theory. Undergraduate students interested in joining the lab should reach out to Dr. James via email or fill out her interest form within the first two weeks of the semester of interest or, for summer research, reach out by email early in the spring semester to see if Dr. James is taking research assistants for that coming summer. https://sites.google.com/site/arielnjames

Development of Social Identities Lab

Cari Gillen-O’Neel’s “DSI” Lab investigates how people develop  identities and a sense of belonging within the social worlds around them. Currently, we are pursuing two lines of research: 1) What do children learn about race—and where do those ideas come from? and 2) What makes college students feel like they truly belong? We approach these questions in lots of different ways. Depending on what we want to know, we might use surveys, daily-diary studies, experiments, qualitative interviews, or longitudinal research that follows people over time. Research assistants collaborate on everything from finding and discussing articles to collecting, coding, analyzing, and interpreting data. If you are interested in getting involved, email Cari ([email protected]) to set up a time to talk about the lab and current opportunities.
https://www.carigillenoneel.com/research

Friendship & Close Relationships Lab

Grace Vieth’s Friendship & Close Relationships Lab studies adult friendships and their connections to health and well-being across the lifespan. Current projects examine how friendships differ from other close relationships during positive relational processes, how long-term versus newer friendships differentially affect health outcomes in aging populations, and how friendships can be better leveraged in health behavior change interventions. We draw on a range of methods, including self-report surveys, video-recorded dyadic interactions, narrative identity interviews, and longitudinal data. To inquire about lab openings or how to apply, contact Grace Vieth: [email protected].

Health Promotion Lab

Brian Rood’s Health Promotion Lab focuses on researching, designing, and implementing health interventions. Informed by empirical data, clinical science, and public health practices, our goal is to reduce health disparities and promote the health of communities—especially those that are typically marginalized and/or underserved. We partner with large health systems and local agencies, community advisory boards, and other colleges and universities to design studies, collect data, and evaluate the impact of our collective work. Currently, we have several studies that examine, for example, mental health interventions for college students and for people living with serious and persistent mental illness; and the impact of gender affirming care among transgender and non-binary college students. If you are interested in learning more about the lab and/or getting involved as a research assistant, please reach out to Brian at [email protected].

Behavioral Neuroscience lab

Jean-Marie Maddux’s Behavioral Neuroscience lab studies associative learning mechanisms that contribute to substance use. We use a combination of behavioral, pharmacological, and neurobiological techniques to accomplish this overarching goal. The lab has a set of 12 fully equipped rodent behavioral chambers that can support a variety of Pavlovian or operant conditioning experiments. To apply as a research assistant, please e-mail Professor Maddux directly at [email protected]. Note: Professor Maddux will be on sabbatical in the Spring 2027 semester and will not be recruiting research assistants for that semester.

Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

Darcy Burgund’s Cognitive Neuroscience lab examines visual object recognition, hemisphere asymmetries, and memory, with a particular focus on face processing. The lab contains equipment for tests of visual hemisphere asymmetries and monocular/binocular processing. Professor Burgund recruits research assistants for her lab from her Cognitive Neuroscience course.

Psychology of/and Disability Lab

Joan Ostrove’s Psychology of/and Disability lab focuses on alliances and relationships between disabled people and non-disabled people, and between Deaf and hearing people. She uses surveys, interviews, and focus groups to conduct her work. She is currently co-editing a Handbook on the Social Psychology of Disability; if you’re interested in doing library-based research related to the social psychology of disability or want to work on your editing, referencing, or proofreading skills (while learning a lot about the social psychology of disability!), please contact Joan at [email protected].

Perception and Cognition Lab

Violet Brown’s perception and cognition lab studies how humans understand spoken language using behavioral (e.g., response time, spoken/typed response) and physiological (e.g., pupillometry, eye-tracking) methods. We’ll study topics related to audiovisual speech perception, cognitive effort in challenging listening conditions, accented speech processing (we all have an accent!), and the challenges associated with processing speech in a second language. Although the theoretical focus of the lab involves spoken language processing, the main goal of the lab is to give you practice conducting preregistered, transparent, reproducible research, which is why much of our research focuses on improving measurement practices in psychological science (i.e., addressing how we measure the psychological constructs we’re interested in) and addressing other methods-focused topics. Violet is eager to work with a few students in the Fall, so if you’re interested, email her at [email protected].

Morality and Social Cognition Lab

Steve Guglielmo’s Morality and Social Cognition lab investigates the social and cognitive processes that underlie moral judgment, including questions about how people make inferences about others’ minds, how these inferences shape moral judgments, and how negative moral judgments like blame may differ from positive ones like praise.