Research
My current research is based on factors affecting a user’s trust in an automated system. Specifically, we are investigating the importance of the reliability and adaptation of the system, and how these factors interact with the user’s personality traits to impact their feelings of trust in the system. Reliability is defined as the proportion of correct responses provided by the system. For example, a highly reliable system may provide a correct response 95 times out of 100, while a lower reliability system may only be correct 70 times out of 100. The adaptation of the system is defined as its ability to respond appropriately to changes in the needs of the user. For example, if the user must switch from monitoring two displays to four, the adaptive system should respond by increasing the level of automation in order to counteract the increase in task demand. The user’s personality is expected to play an important role in the results of this study, as those who tend to be more agreeable are expected to be more likely to trust the system regardless of its flaws, while those users who are higher in neuroticism are expected to have a stronger negative reaction to the poorly designed systems. This project is nearing completion. We have run approximately 175 participants, which will (hopefully) be determined to be sufficient after the initial data analysis begins over the next few weeks.
As one project is winding down, I am beginning to start working on a new project. I am currently in the early stages of putting together a grant proposal for the National Science Foundation. I am planning on designing a study that will seek to better understand the relationship between personality differences physiological (EEG) responses to stressful situations. There have been studies that have shown general physiological differences among people with different personalities, and many studies that measure physiological response to stress, but none have attempted to integrate the two.
Teaching
I have taught in some capacity every semester I have been in the program. I started off as a lab instructor for Research Methods, then a lab instructor for Statistical Methods. This semester was my first time actually being an Instructor of Record, teaching Neuropsychology. I had enjoyed teaching as a lab instructor, but actually running a class completely on my own is a completely different experience. Knowing that I am solely responsible for teaching 45 students everything they should know about a subject, and that I have to do it in a comprehensive, understandable, and enjoyable way is very stressful, and very rewarding. Seeing the same students three times a week for a full semester and watching them learn and grow and become interested in the topic has been one of the most rewarding things I have done. I feel that I have personally grown a great deal from the experience as well: both on a social level from gaining experience working with students, and on a personal level by understanding the content better after explaining in to others. I feel like I learned more about Neuropsychology by teaching it to others than I have ever learned from being a student in a class. Although I still don’t plan on going into a career in academia after I graduate, I would really enjoy teaching part time as an adjunct professor once I have established a career in industry or government research.
Future
Near Future
This summer I will begin working as a Research Fellow at the Army Research Institute. I will work there for at least a year working on issues related to using games as military training simulators. The first project I will work on involves creating and validating new measures to examine the trainee’s performance on specific game-based scenarios. These measures will serve as benchmarks to determine the progression of military personnel through their training, in order to better understand who is ready to move into real-world scenarios and who require additional training.
I am hoping that my work at ARI will be a bit faster paced than the work I have done so far at UCF. The army seems more interested in quick answers than incredibly thorough findings, and I feel this will be a better setting for me at this stage in my career. While I have enjoyed spending two years analyzing every conceivable aspect of the research project I have been working on, it has still all revolved around one specific experiment. I feel I will be better prepared for a future career by working on several smaller experiments for a year in order to get some more diverse experience.
I am also looking forward to being able to devote more of my time to research. Up to now I have had to share my time between research and teaching, but my position at ARI will allow me to just work on research and not have to teach. While I do enjoy teaching, I feel I will get more out of being able to devote myself entirely to research.
While working at ARI for the next year, I plan on continuing research through UCF. Hopefully, the grant proposal I am working on now will come through and I can start getting some experience using EEG in an experimental setting. Even if I do not win the grant, I will likely still work on some basic EEG-based research in order to gain experience.
I would like to build on this physiological measurement experience to eventually lead to my dissertation. I am very interested in using the brain as a direct input device for computers, and would like to work this into my dissertation somehow. But doing that will definitely require experience with measuring and analyzing EEG recordings, which I need to start working on now.
Distant Future
After graduating, I would like to work in a research lab, either private or government, working with brain-computer interfaces. There is just starting to be some very interesting advances in this area and I feel that there is no end in sight for what can be accomplished with these types of systems.
For example, Dr. Nicolelis from Duke has created an interface which involves the direct measurement of a monkey’s motor cortex via surgically implanted electrodes. This information is sent to a computer, which translates it into intended muscle movements. This information is sent to a robotic arm which then moves appropriately based on the monkey’s thoughts. This type of technology fascinates me to no end, and I hope to be able to devote my career to advancing it.
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