Muhlenberg volleyball player Rebecca Shear, a rising senior neuroscience major, writes about her summer research on memory:

I have been working in Dr. Gretchen Gotthard's lab since freshmen year. When I had the opportunity to work in her lab for a second summer, I was thrilled.

Even though we are not on campus, Dr. Gotthard and I meet weekly through Zoom to discuss our progress and our direction. One of the more difficult aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic from an educational perspective has been maintaining the quality of education while remote. This same issue arises in terms of research. Usually, our research has participants use an in-lab virtual reality system. What I am working on this summer is designing an experiment that can be translated online while maintaining the quality of an in-person experiment.

We are studying a means of overloading working memory. Think of this concept as being lectured by a professor. The professor speaks to you while showing you a PowerPoint. As a student, you can try to listen and look at the PowerPoint, but most of the time, you will be overloaded. When you try to listen and read at the same time, you are not able to retain as much. This is overloading your working memory.

Experimentally, we can harness this phenomenon with tasks that are visuospatial. Visuospatial tasks require you to use your visual and spatial processing systems like in the game Tetris. As you see (visual) blocks fall on the screen, you need to orient them in space (spatial) to fit with lower level blocks to continue the game. Playing this game overloads your working memory and makes it more difficult to consolidate memories.

My study will require participants to play Tetris for varying lengths of time to see how short versus long sessions impact its effectiveness at overloading working memory. With this research, we can further contribute to treatment of memory-based disorders, like phobias and post traumatic stress disorder as well as create a standard for virtual research participation, which will be necessary for this coming fall.

Although this summer is different from any in the past, that has not stopped Mule athletes from enjoying fantastic experiences. If you would like to tell the story of your summer, please fill out our Summer Check-In form!