In the "What's going on at Tufts grad schools?" series, the Daily takes a look at the unique and interesting research going on at the graduate level of the University. This first installment looks at the research of several members of the psychology department of the Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
With graduation almost upon them, many students have chosen to apply to graduate schools because they who want a more in-depth education in their chosen field. By the time those graduate students studying psychology at Tufts gain their Ph.D., they have an extensive, in-depth grasp of many aspects of experimental psychology - thanks to their involvement in research and experiments.
Although training for counseling and clinical psychology are not offered, the department specializes in such topics as cognition, neuroscience, and psychopathology, in addition to developmental, social, and engineering psychology. Most emphasis is placed on the experimental and research aspects of psychology, as the department's main objective is to provide students with a background for research and teaching careers.
Associate Professor Holly Taylor has spent 11 of her 13 years as a professor at Tufts' psychology department. She specializes in spatial environments and how people think about and perceive them.
Taylor's work is specifically centered on how people get around the Tufts campus. For example, when the memorial steps were closed due to construction, she studied the various alternate routes people used to get around and then used these findings to make conclusions about problem solving.
Other focuses of her work include different methods of learning - for example, learning through the use of the Internet versus traditional learning through use of a textbook - and which ways provide the best knowledge retention rate.
Taylor's undergraduates often work on her research projects. Doing so, she said, gives them more opportunities to learn about experimentation and work in a lab context.
"Although a lot of them take Psychology 1, they get more out of what they've learned in class through participation in experiments," Taylor said.
She hopes that her work will have implications for students other than those currently taking psychology or pursuing a psychology degree. Because her studies focus on such academic aspects as problem solving and learning retention rates, Taylor aims to have a general impact on how people use and present information in an educational context.
Associate Professor Keith Maddox specializes in social psychology and leads studies which focus on stereotyping and prejudice. The studies explore the experiences of people who are members of stereotyped groups, and the ways that people use stereotypes in making social judgments.
Maddox said that while both graduate students and undergraduate psychology majors are participating in the study he's currently conducting, many students taking introductory-level psychology courses participate as well. However, as this is an ongoing study, he was reluctant to comment on his findings thus far.
Professor Joe DeBold, who has been working at Tufts since 1979, specializes in biopsychology and how hormones influence the brain and behavior. His primary interest is in how the brain changes. One of three Tufts psychology professors who do not use human subjects in their research, DeBold instead studies animals and their brains.
DeBold's current project is centered on how alcohol, as compared to other drugs, affects aggression and violence. According to statistics, roughly 50 percent of violent crimes are motivated by alcohol. DeBold's work focuses on what exactly alters the brain when one consumes alcohol, and why some consumers are more motivated to commit violent acts.
Through the use of rats and mice, DeBold and his colleagues aim to find out if the same kind of aggression that humans feel after alcohol consumption occurs in animals as well. If so, such aggression cannot be attributed solely to human culture.
Thus far, DeBold has found that some rats and mice have become aggressive due to alcohol's alteration of the neurotransmitter known as GABA. GABA has been found to be the neurotransmitter in the brain most altered by alcohol consumption.
DeBold feels that his research is a good learning tool for students who work with him in the lab.
"[My work] is only of benefit to the students who are helping me in the laboratory," he said. "However, it affects the way I teach, because students learn the effects of biopsychology in general. Instead of reading it in a book, they can find out about what's current, rather than what's history."
