The 12th annual Research Symposium was held at the University Student Center ballroom on April 15 to showcase this year’s research projects and creative work from USF St. Petersburg students.
The symposium gathers undergraduate students from all different majors, including biology, mass communications, criminology, psychology and business. A total of 158 students exhibited 138 projects, which were sponsored by 27 faculty members.
“I love the fact that the number of students keeps getting bigger,” said Daun Fletcher, assistant of the Honors College program. “There’s more and more students getting involved every year.”
“This is by far the biggest representation of students we ever had,” said Thomas Smith, director of the USFSP Honors program.
A group of psychology students presented projects titled “Neuroimaging of Video Gaming” and “Video Games and Cognition.” Research subjects took control of a character in a video game for 15 minutes, and then switched to another character for 15 minutes.
Researchers examined brain activity by using a method called “near-infrared spectroscopy,” in which they studied the blood-oxygen-level of the prefrontal cortex. They found that more brain activity occurred when the students played the first character because they were learning how to complete the game’s quests.
“People working better at figuring out new things were better at the game,” said psychology major Molly Quinn. “They actually were using the right prefrontal lobe more for the first character.”
Another group project was created by mass communication students Danielle von Dreele, Choya Randolph and Bryana Perkins called “Meme Messages.” The project analyzed the content of 60 random Internet memes. They categorized the different memes and found that most had 42 percent neutral/negative tone, and more top-to-bottom text placement. The group based the tone on “what was going on and a person’s type of humor,” said Bryana Perkins.
Courtney Thompson, a biology major, did research on a bacteria called Staphylococcus Aureus to detect factors that help the bacteria survive in paper currency. During her experiment, she grew different strains of the bacteria, examined their genes, and placed them in DNA and blood plates to test their resistance. She found that there is a 7 percent chance of somebody getting the bacteria from paper bills.
Taylor Adams researched the predatory behaviors of crocodiles. He watched YouTube videos of crocodiles attacking animals to see how many times they succeed at hunting. His results showed that they have “low predatory success” in catching and killing their prey.
“They don’t succeed in a kill as often as many people would think of crocodiles” Adams said.
The room was crowded with the excitement of students, faculty and visitors. During the symposium, psychology professor Mark Durand and Thomas Smith congratulated the students, who were given a certificate for their projects after the symposium.
