Cognition Lab
About Us
The Cognition Lab examines human cognition, including perception, memory, creativity, and learning. In particular, we investigate factors that influence memory accuracy and vulnerability to false memories, aging, the role of memory in creativity, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Further research focuses on the development of academic engagement support for first-generation college students.
Most research takes place on campus with GovState students, faculty, and staff. Community participation is welcomed, and aging research may take place off-site.
If you are a student interested in learning the research process or participating in a research study, we encourage you to contact our lab! We are located on the third floor of the D Building at Governors State University.
Address: 1 University Pkwy, University Park, IL 60484.
Email: gsucognitionlab@gmail.com
Student-Led Projects
One of the amazing benefits of GovState is that our labs are not restricted regarding the topics we can investigate. If you are interested in gaining research experience and have a topic that you would like to explore, let's discuss!
You can learn about the research process by helping with existing projects, while I help you develop your own research question and project design. I will guide you through the many stages of research development, execution, analysis, and dissemination, if that interests you. If I think there might be a better guide available on campus for your exact research interests, I will connect you with that person. I will be happy knowing that you are exploring your interests and learning more about the scientific method and how to be a critical thinker!
Current Research
Ever hear a song on the radio and suddenly find yourself thinking of some moment from your past? Smell a particular perfume or cologne and find yourself thinking of a loved one?
Memories are often triggered by environmental cues in one form or another. Odors are considered subjectively vivid and emotionally powerful memory triggers. But how effective are they as memory cues? Is the information triggered by an odor qualitatively different than if triggered by another modality, like sounds or words? Does it impact the information we attend to in the immediate or alter the criteria we set for recollection later? What about how confident we are in these recollections? Does it change with age?
If these questions interest you, we are currently running projects looking at many of these and more!
Online discussion boards are often only associated with distance learning environments. However, this discussion platform can significantly contribute to student learning in on-campus courses as well.
Cognitive psychology research on human learning suggests specific guidelines for maximizing student comprehension, memory, and course satisfaction for both the on-campus and online mediums. Learning theories such as levels-of-processing, self-referencing, transfer, the generation effect, application of content to concrete examples and real-life connections, and distributed learning can be explicitly applied to the development of effective and engaging online discussions.
These theories provide the framework for how to design and implement successful discussion boards to serve as a valuable learning tool. Students can be encouraged to connect concepts to related information in the course and to their own experience through specific instructions from the instructor. The use of guided questions can have competing effects on student participation and their engagement with one another.
Our research investigates the factors that improve motivation to participate, student satisfaction with the engagement, flexible application of the concepts covered, and accurate use of the concepts. We are also evaluating how to design discussions to allow for appropriate use of AI tools without sacrificing student learning.
Considerable discussion and scholarship have been conducted on first-generation students’ academic retention and successful completion of a degree program. Factors such as motivation, parental support, and peer engagement have been evaluated in connection with self-efficacy and educational attainment.
Fewer studies have assessed first generation students’ academic co-curricular engagement as measured by use of campus resources, involvement in student organizations and leadership, global and cultural experiences, professional internships and networking, research experiences, or community and service learning. The research that has been conducted indicates there is a strong divide between first-generation and continuing-generation student engagement. However, there are issues that exist with the current assessment tools (such as double-barreled questions and unclear terms).
We are investing these forms of engagement using a newly developed assessment tool to determine awareness, interest, and level of involvement by students who self-identify as first-generation and their peers. We are further using focus groups to confirm the item validity. We are also evaluating the impact of strength-based rhetoric to promote the use of these campus opportunities and delivery methods for increasing engagement, particularly among students at commuter schools or with a higher commitment load outside of their class responsibilities. Would explicitly acknowledging the characteristics shared by these students, emphasizing their strengths, and encouraging them to take pride in the role these characteristics can play in their success during and after graduation, improve their sense of belonging, reduce imposter syndrome, and increase co-curricular engagement, all factors associated with higher retention to graduation and advantageous post-graduation outcomes?
First-generation students bring valuable life experiences that help enrich the diverse tapestry of academia and contribute to an educated society best equipped to support equitable opportunities for upward mobility.
While they are not alone in offering diverse contributions, they are often framed by their deficiencies without much discussion of the valuable qualities they share, such as resilience and determination to pursue goals that differ from their home environment. In addition to investigating strategies to improve first-generation students' co-curricular engagement, the GovState Cognition Lab also evaluates strategies and activities that provide the tools instructors and institutions can use to capitalize on this cohort of pioneers, without dismissing their intersectional identities. How prepared to support first-generation students are instructors and other support staff who interact with students most? How can we improve this?
A lot of research suggests that social media use impairs our autobiographical recall, reducing detail, lowering affective response, harming encoding of information and making retrieval more difficult. The most common conclusion is that sharing our experiences online harms our memory because we are "off-loading" the information to an external source.
However, this does not take into account the dynamics of social media, including feedback to the posts, reminders of the memories, or the power of an objective record to sustain more accurate recall. We investigate these other factors to determine what benefits might exist for using social media to keep a record of our experiences.
Grant submitted... more information coming soon.
Interested in How Scientists Learn More About the Mind?
Receive research credit (or extra credit) for some GovState courses, or earn a $20 pre-loaded Visa card.
Study Description: Are you between 18 and 35 years old? Do you speak fluent English? Participate in a study on COGNITION with the Psychology Program of Governors State University in the Psychology & Counseling Research Lab (D34030).
You will read words, smell odors, and view images; make perception decisions, and complete questionnaires. The experiment takes place over two days, 48 hours apart. Each session lasts approximately 1 hour.
To Schedule: Email your name, age, and best times for participating (e.g., mornings or afternoons) to gsucognitionlab@gmail.com OR sign up for an appointment time with GovState's SONA system (make sure that you sign up for both Parts 1 & 2)
Who Are We?
Volunteer
We are currently recruiting participants for research studies!
Want to volunteer? Email Dr. Sasha Cervantes, scervantes@govst.edu
Psychology at Governors State University
Learn more about the undergraduate psychology program at GovState.
Psi Chi, Psychology Honor Society - GovState Chapter
Interested in joining our local chapter of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology?
Click on the links below for more information:
