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As part of an ongoing project exploring the link between the human visual and motor systems, Jeannine Pinto, assistant professor of psychology, has been providing students with valuable research experiences.
Pinto’s Lafayette Perception Lab has involved a dozen students through independent study and EXCEL research. Assisting Pinto this semester are psychology majors Brittany Hunter ’09 (Scotia, N.Y.) and Lindsey Greenfield ’10 (Staten Island, N.Y.). Hunter and Greenfield are working together to develop a method of testing how visual perception changes when humans acquire new motor skills.
“Adults can learn new motor skills just as infants and children initially learn whole new sets of motor skills,” explains Pinto. “This project is part of an ongoing study trying to better understand how the brain works.”
According to Pinto, related research has revealed links between the visual and motor systems, such as impaired vision leading to heightened motor sensitivity. A better understanding of how this happens could, among other things, lead to improvements in rehabilitative services, such as finding new ways of using the visual system to help compensate for motor skills that have been damaged or lost after injury.
With the current experiment, the student researchers are working with student volunteers who are asked to learn a new set of motor skills, and then identify a video recording of them performing their set of motor skills based solely on the pattern of their movements.
“How well the students can identify the pattern of their movements will gauge their visual sensitivity as they have developed these new motor skills,” Pinto explains.
While this research will positively impact the scientific community, it will also do wonders for the student researcher’s future careers, no matter which direction they choose to take in their field.
“The research experience these girls are receiving will leave them in a great position to pursue post graduate degrees or enter the workforce,” Pinto says. “Both of these girls have made practical contributions to this project, and are wonderful to work with.”