Kirsten Adam & Momona Yamagami
Example project: Object interaction paradigms for virtual and augmented reality accessibility
Object interactions are a critical aspect of the immersive experience in augmented and virtual reality (extended reality). However, the movements required for such interactions (e.g., move and close hand to grasp a sword) may not be accessible for individuals with motor disabilities arising from conditions like stroke, spinal cord injury, and Parkinson disease. To remap object interactions to accessible inputs, we first need to develop a taxonomy of object interactions. For example, a wheel could be grasped and turned, while a box may be held and thrown. Understanding and categorizing the properties of these different object interactions is the first step towards creating accessible extended reality input technologies.
Michael Byrne & Philip Kortum
Example project: Ensuring voting security through behavioral research
Even though the voting world has moved from strictly electronic voting machines to ballot marking devices that generate a piece of paper that is the official ballot, security concerns have remained. Chief among these is that the voting machine will show the voter their correct selections on the voting computer’s screen, and then surreptitiously modify those selections before printing the ballot, with the hope that the voter fails to carefully check the printed ballot, which is the actual vote of record. We are interested in understanding how users detect these kinds of changes on ballots (perceptually and cognitively), and how we can create systems that encourage vote checking behaviors on the part of the voter, so that these kinds of security risks can be mitigated.
Jing Chen
Example project:Enhance human-AI collaboration in automated driving
Dr. Chen’s Human-Automation Collaboration (HAC) Lab is working on an NSF-funded project on safe and secure automated driving with a focus on human-AI collaboration. This work involves both graduate and undergraduate students. The HAC lab has conducted studies to understand the public’s perception of the capabilities and limitations of AI in the context of cyber-attacks, and to leverage the AI technology to help the human driver maintain vigilance in automated driving. This project also includes quantitative modeling of human vigilance in this context, as well as developing a vigilance-based adaptive task-allocation scheme for effective human-AI collaboration. This project uses both quantitative and qualitative methods; students will also gain interdisciplinary research experience working on this project.
Patricia DeLucia
Example project: Multisensory integration of information in judgments of collision
This project uses a novel virtual reality system that simulates 3D traffic environments that can be seen and heard! The objective of this project is to study how people combine information from vision and hearing to make judgments about collisions as in crossing a street. A fundamental component of mobility is the ability to avoid collisions with objects or people in the environment, for example, walking in a shopping mall or crossing a street. These abilities have been considered mostly visual and there are few studies of the use of auditory information for collision avoidance, and even fewer on how auditory and visual information are combined. The current study will use auditory and visual simulations of approaching objects and measure the relative contributions of vision and hearing to judgments of collisions. Results will have implications for training and rehabilitation of people who have vision loss and thus might compensate for this loss by relying more on hearing.
Related to this is a project that examines the use of tactile cues (vibration) in judgments of collision, and the ability to monitor signals for a long period of time (vigilance).
There are additional projects that involve virtual reality systems.
Example project: Perception of collision during highway driving
This project uses a driving simulator with a wide field of view steering wheel, and pedals. The objective of this project is to study the information that drivers need to avoid a collision with a stopped or slow moving truck-trailer located in the distance on a highway during nighttime. Such collisions are typically fatal in part because stopped vehicles are not expected on a highway and because there is inadequate information at nighttime to recognize a vehicle in the distance. Prior research showed that people rely on the growing size of the vehicle in the driver’s field of view. However, the importance of being to recognize the vehicle has not been tested. Truck-trailers are required to contain red-and-white conspicuity tape in the rear and sides and these stripes can be seen from about 300 m. However, they do not outline the basic shape of the truck-trailer. Thus, drivers may notice “something” is up ahead but they may not recognize it as a truck-trailer or other hazard or notice that it is stopped. The current study aims to measure the effects of a different information provided by the conspicuity tape patterns on hazard recognition and collision avoidance. Results will have implications for transportation safety, and ultimately have potential to reduce collisions.
Chris Fagundes
Summer trainees will have the opportunity to design a project based on Dr. Fagundes’ current funded work. If accepted, trainees will work with a team that includes post-doctoral fellows, staff, Ph.D. students, and undergraduate research assistants. Trainees will be provided a work space equipped with a computer at the new Bioscience Research Collaborative at Rice University. For detailed information about ongoing projects, potential trainees should go to bmed.rice.edu and click on the project tab.
Erin Standen
Example project: Reframing behavioral recommendations to increase motivation and reduce weight stigma
Although it is standard practice for healthcare providers to give people behavioral weight loss advice, evidence suggests that receiving this advice can make people feel stigmatized. This project examines the role that message framing plays when delivering weight-related behavioral advice. In particular, our team is interested in testing whether framing recommendations around their health benefits, rather than around their implications for weight loss, results in people experiencing less weight-based identity threat and/or greater behavioral motivation. We are also investigating the extent to which the source of behavioral advice (e.g., a mobile health app, a general health campaign, a healthcare provider) influences the way people respond to the advice. Because experiencing weight-based identity threat can undermine behavior change efforts, intervening in this process has the potential to improve people’s immediate affective experiences and long-term health outcomes.
Tianjun Sun
Example project: Enhancing AI-powered psychological assessment
This project investigates how conversational AI chatbots can assess personality traits and other individual differences, focusing on addressing biases in AI-driven interviews. Students will develop AI-based assessments using rule-based approaches and natural language processing (NLP) techniques, comparing these methods with traditional assessments to evaluate their reliability and validity. The project will also examine potential biases related to gender, age, and race within AI-facilitated interviews. By experimenting with various conversational prompts and interaction styles, students will identify sources of bias and explore strategies for creating more equitable AI assessment tools. The results will contribute to improving personnel decision-making processes and advancing the development of fair and effective AI technologies in both organizational settings and psychological research.
Margaret Beier(unavailable this year)
Example project: Workplace Learning and Development
Most adult learning takes place in service of work; sometimes through training in the workplace and at other times outside of the workplace, when workers want to gain skills for new opportunities. Our lab studies the predictors of skill learning in adults. Questions include, ‘What are the factors that contribute to motivation for lifelong learning?’ ‘How do skills develop through the lifespan that contribute to lifelong learning?’ and ‘How can society and organizations support lifelong learning and skill development so workers can remain employed and employable?’
Bryan Denny (unavailable this year)
Example project: Investigating biobehavioral mechanisms of cognitive emotion regulation training for family caregivers of Alzheimer’s Disease patients
Caring for a loved one diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease is highly stressful. In this project we are investigating the biobehavioral mechanisms underlying a novel smartphone-based cognitive emotion regulation intervention in primary family caregivers of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease or a related dementia (AD/ADRD). In particular, we are examining how thinking about an emotional stimulus in a more adaptive way can predict changes in health-related behavior via changes in negative affect and psychophysiological health-related biomarkers. This work may hold clinical significance in the development of new, scalable interventions to improve emotional health and well-being in family caregivers of AD/ADRD patients.
Ed Salas (unavailable this year)
Simon Fischer-Baum (unavailable this year)
Example project: Language impairments and recovery following brain damage
Immediately following brain damage, many individuals are left with selective difficulties in understanding and producing language , with at least partially recovery common over the course of 6-12 months. The goals of this project is to understand how language functions associate and dissociate following brain damage, to identify the neural basis of these different language functions using lesion-based methods and to map how changes in the patterns of brain activity following brain damage relate to recovery of function.
Example project: Reading by touch
Braille opens a world of information to individuals who are blind. At the same time the literacy rate among individuals who are blind in the United States is a cause for concern. The goal of this research is develop a better understanding of the cognitive processes involved in braille reading. Because of differences between tactile and visual perception, reading by touch might differ substantially from reading by sight and there are also differences between how words are written in braille and how they are written in print. Because of these differences, there may be ways to effectively teach braille reading that differ from standard approaches for print reading.
Luz Garcini(unavailable this year)
Example project: Building Strength in the Face of Loss for Families with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Providing resources to support the mental health of bereaved adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is crucial to their well-being, yet evidence-based information is scant. The long-term goal of this project is to develop an infrastructure to build and disseminate an evidence-based web-enabled toolkit, tailored specifically for the needs of bereaved adults with IDD that is free and highly accessible. Our first goal is to build a robust network of community partners that will guide our efforts. In collaboration with our community partners, our second goal is to conduct a formative study to adapt an existing bereavement program called Paths [Senderos] to develop a web-enabled toolkit specifically tailored for bereaved adults with IDD. After developing the toolkit, our third goal is to conduct a study to determine the acceptability and effect of using the toolkit on the emotional well-being of bereaved adults with IDD. Once considered acceptable by the IDD community, our fourth goal is to disseminate the toolkit throughout Texas. Ensuring that bereaved adults with IDD have access to mental health resources that are specifically tailored to their needs is crucial to create systemic change, provide support, promote inclusion, reduce health risk, and prevent harm among one of our vulnerable IDD communities.
Ozge Gurcanli (unavailable this year)
Mikki Hebl (unavailable this year)
Example project: The influence of regional accents on employment decisions
In this study, we examine perceptions associated with U.S. regional accents. We propose that employer’s first impressions may be influenced by the candidate’s accent (Lippi-Green, 1997). This project extends work on native/nonnative accents (i.e., British accent) to look at how applicants with one of four different regional accents (i.e., southern, Midwestern, east coast, west coast) are evaluated by potential employers.
Example project: The relationship between stereotypicality and leadership
For this study, we examine the extent to which stereotypicality influences leadership. Stereotypicality refers to the extent to which someone looks more (or less) like members of their own racial group, and this construct has been shown to significantly influence criminal sentencing, social networks, and persistence in STEM fields for those who look more or less like members of their race. In this study, we examine the relationship between stereotypicality and leadership.
Danielle King (unavailable this year)
Example project: Resilience to Adversity and Goal Focus
The aim of this study is to assess whether and how the way we think about our work goals impacts our ability and tendency to overcome adversity at work. We aim to inform programs and interventions meant to help employees better manage stressors in the workplace.
Example project: Developing a measure of employee resilience
This project focuses on developing both a trait and a behavioral measure of resilience to adversity. This work seeks to improve upon currently available measures and to help guide future research through the development of a clarified and valid measurement tool.
Eden King (unavailable this year)
Example project:
The American Academy of Pediatrics specifies that exclusive breastfeeding for six months, and continued breastfeeding with supplemental foods for one year or longer, drastically improves child and maternal health. Yet, only half of American children are breastfed at six months, and only one-third (30.7%) are breastfeeding at 12 months. A critical—and potentially malleable—reason for breastfeeding cessation is that women find it difficult to manage nursing when they return to work. Our lab is working to understand and reduce barriers to breastfeeding among working women.
Example project:
Subtle forms of discrimination in educational contexts can cause anxiety, usurp cognitive resources, and ultimately undermine interest, confidence, and achievement. Our lab is working to identify and test strategies that enhance the retention of underrepresented students in STEM careers by empowering them with effective strategies to overcome the detrimental consequences of subtle discrimination at present and in their future workplaces. We will analyze why and how subtle discrimination is problematic and assess ambiguity reduction strategies as powerful theory-driven buffers of these effects.