What kind of do we do?
All CESPA laboratories are concerned with the theme of perceiving and acting. This integrated structure promotes an active atmosphere and allows students to move easily among experimental methods and faculty advisors. In addition to ecological faculty on UConn’s Storrs campus (James Dixon, Till Frank, Bruce Kay, and Tehran Davis in Psychology; Deb Bubela and Jeffrey Kinsella-Shaw in Physical Therapy) and Hartford campus (Kerry Marsh), and an active core of emeritus professors (Claudia Carello, Carol Fowler, Claire Michaels, Robert Shaw, and M. T. Turvey), collaborative research can also be undertaken with CESPA Fellows (Peter Beek, Paula Fitzpatrick, Bert Hodges, Ken Holt, Dilip Kondepudi, William Mace, and Richard C. Schmidt), regular visitors whose primary affiliation is with other universities.
The Center is housed in 4600 square feet in the Bousfield Psychology Building. The computer environment of Macintosh and Pentium machines, connected via local area networks, is upgraded regularly. (The University’s mainframe is accessed by ethernet and wireless from every CESPA computer and the Psychology Department has a computer systems manager with two full-time assistants to address software, hardware, and network problems.) Force platforms, electrogoniometers, electromagnetic and infrared movement registration devices, and a computerized treadmill collect data from posture, bimanual coordination, walking, and exploratory behaviors. Customized software includes spectral, correlational, dimensionality, and stability analyses, trial by trial information about parameters such as periods of oscillation, amplitudes, and kinetic energy.