Nikhil Kotecha

In most deception experiments, the situation presented to human subjects in unrealistic, lacking a social dimension, unreflective of the emotionally charged nature of a lie, and does not possess a valid paradigm to assess intention. By incorporating economic games informed by neuroscience modalities, the necessary context can be established to rectify the aforementioned flaws. With accurate monitoring of the subject populations in the economic game, the subjects reactions and behavior can be used in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to provide the needed realistic element to deception research. It would […]

Dana Rosen

Imagine two hot air balloons that leave the ground at the same time. As they rise, one of them moves faster than the other and the distance between them grows as they get higher. Proportionality is everywhere in our world, as are many other mathematical concepts that we dont consider day-to-day, which teachers often refer to real-world situations in the math classroom. However, educational reformers debate whether students should begin learning concepts from abstract producers or concrete situations. The embodied cognition approach reconciles these two approaches, suggesting that we should […]

Tua-Lisa Runsten

Multiple memberships are increasingly common in the universe of citizenship. American Samoans are American non-citizen nationals of the United States; that is, they are nationals but without birthright citizenship. My proposed SURF projects examines the inherent conflicts and contradictions of these overlapping memberships in light of a lawsuit, Tuaua v. United States, filed by a group of five American Samoans in 2012 who sought to obtain the full rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship. The proposed research will analyze the implications of this landmark case, as well as for the […]

Crystal Lee

American Cockroaches exhibit a large versatility of movement; they are able to transverse over varying substrates in different orientations. Over the last decade, scientists have studied the tarsus, or foot of the cockroach, looking specifically for certain features that allow the cockroach to make such transitions. So far, three distinct structures; the claw, the euplantulae, or a set of overlapping friction pads, and the arolium, which is an adhesive protrusion; have been found to act in tandem during movement. My research for the summer will investigate the capabilities of the […]

Jeni Stiso

One of the most intriguing, yet controversial recent findings in neuroscience is the discovery of the mirror neuron system (MNS). These visuo-motor neurons discharge both when a monkey does a particular goal-directed action and when it observes another individual doing a similar action. The result of this mechanism is thought to be the capacity to recognize that an individual is performing an action, to differentiate this action from others analogous to it, and to use this information in order to act appropriately. This mechanism has been proposed as the basis […]