Clinical Research in Applied Neurocognition (CRAN)

Psychology research is all about measuring things we cannot see directly, like mood, attention, or self-control. We usually do this with brain signals, performance on computer tasks, or answers on questionnaires. Response process validity is about whether people are actually doing what we think they are doing when they respond. In other words, do their brain responses, task performance, and questionnaire answers reflect the mental process we are trying to measure, or are they using shortcuts, guessing, intentionally performing better or worse, or doing something else entirely?

Our studies focus on discovering differences in response processes. We use a mix of electroencephalography (EEG), self-report questionnaires, cognitive tasks, daily surveys, and interviews. You can learn more about what we do on our website: https://cranstudies.com/

 

We’re recruiting participants who will wear EEG caps (to measure brain activity) during lab sessions, fill out short daily surveys about their mood and symptoms for two weeks, and then give a final “looking back” summary of how they felt over that whole period. We’ll compare their average daily reports to that final summary; the bigger the gap, the less accurate their memory for their own symptoms.

First, we want to know what people can accurately summarize. Some things, like depression, usually change slowly from day to day, while anxiety and stress can bounce around a lot. We expect that symptoms and behaviors that stay relatively stable will be easier for people to summarize accurately.

Second, we want to know who is more accurate. Everyone will also complete several memory tasks, and we’ll test whether people with better memory performance also give more accurate summaries of their own symptoms and behavior.

Finally, we will use EEG signals and task performance as a kind of reality check. If daily symptom reports are closer to what we see in the brain and in behavior than the retrospective summaries are, that suggests daily reports are a more “real” and trustworthy picture of people’s mental health.

 

In this study, participants will complete a series of different cognitive tasks while wearing an EEG cap, and we will see how their performance and neural responses change when they are giving rewards for doing well.

 

As a research assistant on this project, you'll be trained to handle every step of the study process. You'll start by learning how to use EEG equipment to record brain activity. This includes prepping the scalp, placing the EEG cap, checking signal quality, and running the recording software. You’ll learn how to troubleshoot common issues, manage participant comfort, and make sure the data you're collecting is high quality. By the end of your training, you'll be able to set up and run EEG sessions independently.

In addition to EEG, you'll guide participants through the entire study visit. This includes obtaining informed consent, collecting saliva samples, walking them through each task, and monitoring them throughout the session to make sure everything goes smoothly. You’ll also help with setting up the daily survey system, installing a location tracking app, and conducting a short interview where participants describe their daily experiences during the study period. You'll be the main point of contact for participants, so this is a great role if you like interacting with people and want a deeper understanding of how complex studies are run from start to finish.

There will also be some more boring tasks to complete, which include things like data entry from paper records and transcribing audio files. This won’t be the bulk of the work, but will be expected on weeks where you are not assigned to run any participants.

 

You will be mentored directly by Danielle Jones, a graduate student in Cognitive Psychology who works under Dr. Christopher Patrick (Clinical) and Dr. Chris Martin (Cognitive).

 

There are no minimum GPA or major requirements. Recommended skills are listed below:

 

You can apply for a position using this link: https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_elnIXEscVQrl7vM