Hej!

Hej!

Hi, I’m Toby. This summer I will be traveling to Aarhus, Denmark to do research at the Center of Autobiographical Research at Aarhus University.

I am currently a junior majoring in biology and math and I conduct psychology research in the Bauer Memory at Emory Lab. Weird combination, right? Why is a biology/math major doing psychology research?

I had taken AP psychology in high school and the course had piqued my interest, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to take more psychology classes in addition to math and biology in college. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I was part of the Scholarly Inquiry and Research at Emory (SIRE) program. This program allows undergraduates the opportunity to become involved in research by partnering them with a faculty research mentor. As I was trying to figure out what type of research I wanted to conduct, psychology research seemed like a good way to learn more about the subject. When I came across the Bauer Memory at Emory lab and found that I could learn more about memory and development, I jumped at the opportunity.

The Bauer Memory at Emory Lab is interested in memory and development. Some of the questions we ask include: how does our memory of certain events change as we develop, as well as, how does our knowledge base develop and change over time?

The project I worked on determined if the conversational style a mother used to talk with her child about past events affected the child’s ability to regulate his or her emotions later in life. A maternal conversational style is determined by how often they talk about an emotional aspect of an event; if the child is permitted to talk about the experience or if the mother just tells the child what has occurred etc.  Emotional regulation is having control over one’s emotions and emotional experiences, internally and externally. While there are many aspects that contribute to one’s ability to regulate their emotions, we found that there was a correlation between the two variables. 

In Denmark, I will be working in Dr. Krojgaard’s lab, which also studies development, specifically in infants. In previous studies, it has been determined that pre-verbal children are able to remember a series of actions after viewing a pre-recorded adult demonstration. What we want to know is how these infants learn the series of actions.

This will be my first time to travel abroad. I am both extremely excited and nervous.