Garage Door Research

I have taken a majority of psychology and neuroscience classes at Yale, and it was only recently that I figured out why- nothing else addresses the questions I have about the world so forthrightly. What creates conscious perception? What’s happening when we smile, or laugh, or cry?  How do our retinas and our occipital and frontal lobes team up to create the sensation of aesthetic appreciation?  Of art? How do we look at a garage door and decide if it's fashionable or not? This summer I have an opportunity to travel to Geneva, one of the world’s major centers for advanced neuroscience research, and collaborate with leading investigators with the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences. I am in particular very excited to work with researchers in the Vuilleumier and Sanders neuroimaging labs, which have consistently produced research pertinent to the field of emotional and/or face-related visual processing, and how they create the sensation of aesthetic appreciation.  I also plan to conduct supplementary research to engage in the big ideas as well as the day-to-day duties of being a research assistant, compiling and synthesizing literature the field, explaining where our work in Geneva fits in, and mapping potential paths for future investigation. My ultimate goal is to submit the resulting meta-analysis to the Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology.

 The beauty of studying “aesthetic emotions” at the lab is that it has practical applications to the kind of artistic expression that has always been a passion of mine- creative writing and drawing. Over the course of my summer travels, I will produce projects to submit to the Yale Literary Magazine, the Yale Undergraduate Magazine, and more professional publications.  Over the course of June, July, and part of August, these activities will allow me to incorporate my passions in ways that are not possible within the framework of formal classes at Yale. Above all, it’s a chance for hands-on experience with the type of research I hope to conduct for my senior research project, which will be an empirical APA-style paper, in accordance with the requirements for the BS in Psychology.    I have had some experience in cognition labs on campus here- I worked in the Infant Cognition Center with Professor Wynn, and I am now joining Professor McCarthy’s neuroimaging lab. I’ve written APA-style papers in several of my classes, and I’m currently taking statistics and feel secure in my SPSS computing abilities In addition, I have several supporters and advisors here on campus, especially Professor Margaret Clark, who originally recommended me, and who has offered to sponsor me. Many of my other psychology professors have also been incredibly helpful, and I have no concerns that I will be left adrift at any point in my travels.  I plan to go to grad school in this field, and this summer opportunity will be a great way to both ensure that I enjoy even the day-to-day aspects of this type of work, and to give me experience that will be valuable on the job market.