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Memory is a notoriously unreliable record of the past. To what extent does the emotion attached to life events affect how people remember them? That is the question Letitia Travaglini ’07 and Jennifer Talarico, assistant professor of psychology, explored this past year.
They collaborated through Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, in which students conduct research with faculty while earning a stipend. The program has helped to make Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. Many of the more than 160 students who participate each year share their work through articles in academic journals and/or conference presentations.
Travaglini and Talarico spent the past year reviewing a century’s worth of research regarding how emotion influences memory, trying to determine whether pleasant events or unpleasant events are more likely to be recalled, and whether strongly emotional events are more likely to be recalled than less emotional events.
Travaglini, who graduated with honors May 19 with an A.B. in psychology, was responsible for extracting relevant data from primary sources and compiling it into a chart for analysis. Once they collected the data, they quantitatively summarized and evaluated the previous research findings in order to draw conclusions about the role of emotion in memory.
Travaglini found it interesting that some memories are easily recalled when one is in contact with a particular person, place, or object, while other memories are very easily forgotten or require extensive prodding to be recalled.
“Doing this research also made me realize how important past experiences are in a person’s life, and how these past experiences help shape a person, as well as determine how they may act in current situations,” Travaglini says.
She plans to apply the knowledge she gained from the research in her future career as a clinical psychologist.
“It’s really interesting to see how important the emotional content of an event is in how well it is remembered,” she says. “In particular, it is interesting how the majority of the research showed that people are more likely to remember pleasant events more than unpleasant events, and that more emotionally charged events are remembered better than neutral events, regardless of whether the emotion is positive or negative. Also, along these lines, it is interesting to see how the original emotional experience of an event can change over time.”
Talarico was impressed with the quality of work Travaglini brought to the project.
“This work was extremely demanding, yet sometimes repetitive,” she says. “Letitia’s focus, attention to detail, and perseverance were all necessary to allow her to succeed on this project. Furthermore, her enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions and provide options made what could have been an arduous, difficult task into one that was enjoyable and very productive.”
Talarico believes the EXCEL program gives students a unique opportunity to collaborate with faculty on meaningful research.
“Hands-on experience in the generation of new knowledge is a profound experience; students are able to see how the information they study in their textbooks and in their lectures is discovered and evaluated at the ‘ground level,’” she says. “The EXCEL program allows the students at Lafayette to gain experiences often reserved for students at large state-supported research institutions. For teacher-scholars, the EXCEL program provides us with the opportunity to continue our research programs at the highest level while introducing new people to the problems and methods that we care about so deeply.”
Travaglini will attend West Chester University of Pennsylvania in the fall for graduate work in clinical psychology.
“The EXCEL program itself aided me in my educational goals because it provided me with some of the experience that will be necessary as I advance my education at the graduate level,” she says.
Travaglini also completed honors thesis research this year under the guidance of John Shaw, associate professor and assistant head of psychology, on sports-related gender differences, which she presented at the 21st annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research in April at Dominican University of California. Travaglini is a member of national psychology honor society Psi Chi and international scientific and engineering research honor society Sigma Xi. She also was a member of the Cheerleading Squad and Pi Beta Phi sorority.
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Twenty-one students have been accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.