UROP
What is UROP?
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UROP stands for "Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program." It is a program through Indiana University - Indianapolis that provides funding to undergraduates wanting to conduct research. Applicants must find a faculty member to work with and create a research proposal.
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My Research Project
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Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
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In Fall 2023, I began working with Dr. Sara Konrath, my faculty mentor, and Cyntia Sanchez Vikovich, an undergraduate colleague also participating in UROP.
We examined how emotion recognition has changed over time utilizes a cross-temporal meta-analysis (CTMA). To do so, we examined scores on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) from the late 1990s to 2001 in English-speaking countries. We found that there has been an overall decline in emotion recognition ability.
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Alongside other undergraduates in Dr. Konrath's lab, we presented our research at the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA) conference in Chicago on April 20, 2024. We presented a poster, which you can see on the right.
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Summer 2024
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Fortunately, my UROP funding was extended through the summer and will even continue into next school year. This summer, I primarily continued entering preliminary data. From June to July, I was able to enter data from k=237 studies, leaving k=77 first round extractions.
I will continue working on this project next school year and will complete it as my capstone project. When I finish the first round of data extraction, I will check the data and add additional (participant demographics and standard deviations). Afterwards, I will eventually clean and analyze the data. I will start working on writing my research product when my capstone class begins and hopefully submit it as an article to a peer-reviewed journal.
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Reflection
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Participating in UROP and this research experience has been extremely valuable. I learned and practiced many research skills such as writing, defining criteria, screening abstracts/articles, entering data, and creating/presenting a research poster. I was also able to connect to other undergraduates working with Dr. Konrath.
Due to time constraints, we were only able to present preliminary data thus far. However, I plan to continue working on this project with Dr. Konrath next year for my senior thesis, and we would like to work together and submit an article for publication eventually.
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In progress. Last updated 7/24/2024.
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)
Poster presented at MPA conference on April 20th. To view poster as PDF, click here.
RMET Stimuli Examples– Participants are shown one image at a time and have to choose one of the four answer options that best describe the emotion shown by the actors/actresses.