Grant Supports Multidisciplinary Research Activities in Psychology Department

An Enhancement Grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents will underscore the UL Lafayette Psychology Department’s dedication to advancing excellence in psychological research and pushing the boundaries of knowledge and innovation in the field.

Dr. Hung-Chu Lin is the principal investigator on the grant and professor of Psychology. Co-PIs include Professor Dr. Christoph Borst and Associate Professor Dr. Arun Kulshreshth from the School of Computing and Informatics, as well Associate Professor Dr. Heather Stone from the College of Education and Human Development.

The project goal is to enhance the Psychology Department's infrastructure to support multidisciplinary research activities focusing on utilizing virtual reality (VR) to address the complex and dynamic nature of human emotions.

Particularly, the investigators intend to describe the temporal coordination of visual attention, physiological arousal, and self-reported emotions in response to stimuli of distress signals.

The investigation will also address the feasibility of using continuous self-report rating interfaces and integrated physiological sensing systems to examine human emotions in a VR environment.