This project improves the undergraduate curriculum at all levels of instruction by providing our students with experience and training in state of the art techniques for several areas of psychological research. Experimental stations are set up in the undergraduate laboratory at which students, working in pairs, conduct experiments in learning, cognition, perception and psycholinguistics. Each work station consists of a computer with a color monitor capable of presenting good quality graphics, an interfacing unit that allows the students to use the computer to control and sense events in the environment, and add-on boards and devices that make it possible to present auditory and visual stimuli. These experimental work stations enable the students to perform experiments on the most current areas of psychological research. In addition, more advanced undergraduate students are trained, not only to use the computer in conducting experiments, but to program these experiments and use the peripheral devices. In the current curriculum the experimental psychology course is, for many of our psychology majors, their only laboratory experience. The improvements made possible through this grant enable the expansion of laboratory facilities enhancing the current experimental course as well as adding laboratory components to undergraduate courses in Sensation and Perception, Learning, and Psycholinguistics. Such revisions will increase students interests in, and appreciation for, modern psychological science. The institution is matching the NSF grant with an equal amount of funds.
