Psychology & Our Modern Lives: Department of Psychology Tour Event
This spring, the Department of Psychology was thrilled to have welcomed alumni and donors to Guthrie Hall for tours of three of our labs. Professors Tony Greenwald, Lori Zoellner, and Chantel Prat and Andrea Stocco opened their labs up for a behind the scenes look into how their research is changing lives.
Professor Greenwald walked our guests through is implicit bias test and led a discussion on what the data has and is telling us about our biases. We also learned the history of how his research developed; how it is being used today; and what is next. For an example, Professor Greenwald created a bias test around the upcoming election. If you haven’t taken the test yet or are interested in learning more about Professor Greenwald’s research on bias, click here.
Professor Zoellner and her team walked donors through how they choose participants for their post-traumatic stress disorder research. She also shared how their research is helping those within our communities. One example is their new project working with Somalian refuges that are experiencing PTSD. Professor Zoellner’s lab in collaboration with local and international groups are creating a culturally and religious appropriate therapy to help refugees. The research is currently local and in the pilot stage with the hope of expanding the research to larger local and international populations.
Professors Prat and Stocco showed us how Super Mario is helping us communicate with the brain. Their lab is exploring the possibilities of direct brain to brain communication. Instead of using a controller, our donors played Super Mario by directly stimulating the brain of a participant controlling the game using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). This lab is also interested in improving the brain and our donors observed how participants can control a virtual hang glider using electroencephalography (EEG) to detect their brain patterns in a neurofeedback experiment designed to improve reading abilities.
To learn more about the research being conducted at the UW Psychology Department, please contact Sarah Burdell, Project Advancement, at 206-616-5274 or sburdell@uw.edu. As you may have heard, next year is our 100th anniversary. We would love to share how our research is changing lives and how you can join us.