Castles, Carnivals,and Congruencies...oh, my!

It's the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat. The crowd watches closely for the next move. Spurs player Duncan has the ball-he looks slightly to the right. Bosh follows his gaze but at last fails, as Duncan swiftly takes advantage. He pivots left and scores. The idea of diverting gaze is not a new one and is the basis for the experiment I have been running for the past 8 weeks. 

Let's talk some science, now. We know that the human brain is equipped with several mechanisms that allow us to perceive and understand the actions, interactions and perspectives of others. These basic abilities are crucial in our daily lives. Studies have partially confirmed the fact that we follow the direction of other's gaze. It's a reflexive mechanism in part due to mirror neurons. So now that we know that humans follow other human's direction of gaze, we want to find out more about our social interactions and evaluate this across species. We are using dog stimuli-images of a cute little labrador's face facing forward, left and right in a experimental setup. A dog bone follows at either the same direction or the opposite direction of where the dog is looking. The participant then performs a task accordingly. These are just preliminary studies into whether or not dogs produce a gaze congruency effect. So far, a little surprisingly, they don't.

Finding a way to present research is much easier when you find statistically significant results. The challenge for the past week has been figuring out how to present this information. What do my results me, how do I interpret these results, etc.? For the past week in the lab, I've been researching into neuroimaging studies that explore the human-dog relationship as well as behavioral studies that demonstrate this relationship. After all, we have a long evolutionary history with "man's best friend."

Talking about friends, I met another visiting undergraduate who works in a nearby lab. She is a rising junior at Harvard, and after exchanging contact information, we decided to celebrate the 4th of July in style: I went over to dinner at her home, which she shares with 7 other visiting students from all over the world. We had a great time talking about our past and future travel plans, our new adventures, and all else. As undergraduates, we all noticed the difference in the educational systems-here, the students must decide early what career path they want to pursue. They come to University spending 3 or 4 years studying one thing. We talked about the pros and cons of this-not having options, but also, not having to study what you will never use. As an NBB major and Spanish minor, I enjoy the flexibility and am all for the liberal arts/ interdisciplinary education-it makes things more exciting.

Friday was another long day, as I came early to talk with Carlos about the presentation of my work and after work, I met up with some friends who are studying here through Emory's British Studies Program Friday night and we had a nice night at the University Club. It was wonderful to see some familiar faces around! They had a busy week, going to Stratford-upon-Avon to see "As you like it," attending a formal dinner, and even seeing "Jekyll and Hyde" here at Oxford. It's not all fun, though, as they usually have essays to write about these excursions. I'm thankful that I don't have homework....

Earlier last week, I had made plans with a family friend, Arushi, to visit Windsor Castle. I left early Saturday morning for the train to Windsor and Eton Central.Growing up, every girl imagine her own castle, and Windsor was a fairytale come true. Just stepping on castle grounds felt like entering a page of a storybook-everything was so ornate and extravagant. The entry ticket included the opportunity to walk around and in castle grounds. The castle was majestic, reeking of royalty, full of gold-plated furniture, with every room perfectly decorated. Oh, to live the life...We spent the day walking around the castle grounds and spending time in the town. The beautiful weather made everything so much more perfect.

The Round Tower

Behind the Chapel

the Castle

St. George's Chapel

Sunday was another long day-I met up with some MSc students for punting, a true Oxford tradition. For those of you who don't know what punting is, a punt is a flat-bottomed boat designed for use in small rivers. The punter uses a pole to propel the boat. I had gone rowing and paddling before, but punting was truly a new experience. We got ourselves through several obstacles as we punted around Oxford. Afterwards, we cooled ourselves off on the hottest day of the summer (it was 80, but seemed more like 100) with some ice cream and headed towards the Cowley Carnival. The Carnival was held on Cowley road, one of the main roads around Oxford that is lined with various shops, restaurants, and stores. All the restaurants were selling their food. I soaked in (literally) the smell of the food, the dance music, and the afternoon with some new friends. The weather was warm, and definitely made for a wonderful afternoon.

the punts on Magdallen College Road

Some group doing Capoiera at the Carnival

off to the Carnival!

Monday was another long day of reading, researching, and synthesizing data to make it all sound good. It's actually surprising how much has been studied about the human-dog relationship. Tuesday, I went to another Cortex Club talk. This time, someone from the Allen Institute for Brain Science came to talk about the transcriptome-how the genes in our neocortex truly make us unique. While the talk was quite technical, I could understand some of it and it was cool to gain insight into the molecular aspects of the brain. Yesterday, I met up with one of my Emory friends for dinner at one of the street carts. Even though I've been here a while, I still hadn't tried the street food, which was surprisingly good. After a delicious falafel hummus wrap, we headed to go on a Ghost Tour of Oxford. Apparently, Oxford is haunted....The tour guide told us how the townspeople didn't really like the University students, to the point where several students were massacred. We walked down several haunted areas of Oxford, where students swear they've seen some ghosts. I'm a little afraid now...After the tour, we went to the Turf Tavern, a haunted tavern where dogs would be bred to fight. After hours of talking about our experiences, we headed out for the night. This past weekend, I visited Aarhus, Denmark to visit one of my good friends, Toby, who is researching at Aarhus University through IRES. Keep reading our blogs to find out what we did there!