Ashley Schwartzman decided to examine the link between emotion schemas and memory processing.
Her study uses two questionnaires and a performance of a learning task to assess the relationship between emotion and memory.
Schwartzman, a senior in psychology, said she collaborated with second year graduate student Paul Dennis to generate ideas for a project she was submitting for the third State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium.
The symposium will take place in Greensboro Saturday.
Growing up in Williamsburg, VA, Schwartzman started her first career in psychology long before she enrolled in college, she said.
“My girlfriends used to talk to me about their boyfriend trouble, and my boyfriends would talk to me about their girlfriend trouble,” Schwartzman said. “I was like a ‘counselor’ for my friends and I thought -‘ wow that would be a really cool job!'”
Schwartzman is one of many students in the UNC system that will be participating in the undergraduate symposium.
She said she was encouraged to participate in it at the urging of Amy Halberstadt, an undergraduate professor and director of the Family Affect Behaviors and Beliefs research lab, where Schwartzman said she has worked since last year.
“In our lab, all the students that work with us are often offered awards,” Halberstadt said. “We asked if any of our students wanted to participate in the symposium and Ashley leapt to it.”
Participants in Schwartzman’s project come from a pool of introduction to psychology students that participate in experiments for course credit.
They are asked to fill out both a “Beliefs About Emotion” questionnaire and an “Emotion Regulation” questionnaire that measure “emotion suppression” and “cognitive reappraisal,” or the pushing back of emotions and the evaluation of thoughts.
Participants then complete a ‘go/no-go’ task, which asks them to identify with the press of a button a shape shown on the computer as either a circle or an octagon, or if it is red or green.
A picture of a face, which is either happy or angry, is presented within the middle of each shape for one second.
Afterwards, participants are asked to recall which faces were present in the task.
“It is bold and innovative and really a great project for an undergraduate to embark upon,” said Halberstadt. “It’s wonderful to see what she’s learned in the lab come to fruition.”
Halberstadt said that participating in a conference is a wonderful way of forcing researchers to move forward and in the process, bring all their thoughts together and result in more integrated final projects.
Schwartzman said she is looking forward to what the symposium means for her future.
“I’m really excited about the symposium,” she said. “It is a great experience in preparing for graduate school and a wonderful opportunity to practice.”