“It’s very exciting to find support for your hypothesis”: Inferring the Capacity and Mechanism of Verbal Working Memory
HONOURS THESIS 2022
Brooke Scott is currently pursuing a Masters in Neuroscience at UBC, and completed her Honours in Psychology with a minor in biology at UNB last year. She explains her honours thesis on verbal working memory, where she tested a novel memory task for measuring verbal working memory capacity, and hints at future research building on her results. She enjoys the conceptual puzzles explored in research, and considers study results to be exciting regardless of whether they align with hypotheses.
Supervisor: Dr. Biljana Stevanovski
“We need to step up and step in”: Sexually Aggressive Behaviours and How Perpetrators Avoid Intervention When Witnesses are Present
HONOURS THESIS 2022
Kate Metcalfe completed her degree in Psychology last year with an Honours thesis examining the dynamics between sexual assualt perpetrators and witnesses. She explains how witnesses’ preconceived beliefs, the “ambiguity” of sexual assualt situations, and the behaviours employed by perpetrators for diverting intervention are conducive to enabling unpunished assaults. She emphasizes that bystander intervention can be critical to preventing assaults, and urges individuals to not be idle in ambiguously-perceived social situations.
Supervisor: Dr. Lucia O’Sullivan, Dr. Scott Ronis
“We were inspired to look at eye movements” : Examining Reading Strategies in Children Using Eye Trackers
HONOURS THESIS 2022
Sarah MacIsaac graduated from UNB with Honours in Psychology with a Specialization in Neuroscience, and presented her thesis in the area of child language development at national and international conferences. She explains how eye tracking devices, standardized tests, and reading samples were used to gauge the reading strategies employed by monolingual and bilingual children. She summarizes that the psychology honours program was a highlight of her time at UNB.
Supervisor: Dr. Veronica Whitford
“Giving a voice to unheard parties”: Parents’ perceptions of early interventions for their children with autism
HONOURS THESIS 2022
Brooke Tracy is currently in her first year of the Clinical Psychology program at UNB, and also completed her honours degree in psychology at UNB. She explains her honours thesis on how parents perceive autism intervention programs for their young children, and discusses how studying parental perspectives is essential for optimizing the efficiency of interventions. She also shares personal insights into the research field and research process.
Supervisor: Dr. Barbara D’Entremont
“I learned that I am definitely on the right academic and career track”: Analyzing Gene Datasets to Understand Memory and Circadian Rhythms Dynamics
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE 2022 / ASSISTANT RESEARCHER
Brooke Scott is currently pursuing a Masters in Neuroscience at UBC, and completed her Honours in Psychology with a minor in biology at UNB last year. She shares her research experience examining circadian rhythms and memory dynamics - a work day consisting of analyzing gene and protein datasets. She discusses how enriching she found the research, and offers advice to students who are unsure how to procure research positions.
Supervisor: Dr. Scott Deibel
“We found that it did have a negative effect”: How Background Music Affects Foreign Language Learning
HONOURS THESIS / UNB-SJ
Kimberly Mazerolle is currently in the Certificate of Applied Behaviour Analysis Program at UNB-Fredericton, and previously completed her honours degree in psychology at UNB-SJ. She discusses her thesis on the effects of background music on foreign language learning, a study she was drawn to after completing a Psychology of Music course, and because of her bilingual roots.
Supervisor: Dr. Jonathon Wilbiks