Bridging Body and Mind

We've heard quite a bit about interdisciplinary ventures over the past few years, especially since the Institutional Plan was implemented and placed the creation of new interdisciplinary courses squarely on the College's priority list. During the summer H&S took a big step toward implementing an exciting program that fits right in with these goals.

Making the mind-body connection: Hugh Stephenson, Andrea White, Nancy Rader, Erin Tooley ’05, Leigh Ann Vaughn, and Lauren Prone ’05

Psychology professors Nancy Rader, Leigh Ann Vaughn, and Barney Beins received a grant of $158,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their proposal "Bridging Mind and Body: An Integrative Laboratory for Psychology and Interdisciplinary Instruction." This lab allows faculty and students to explore connections among mental processes, physical activity, and physiological responses by measuring things such as heart rate, respiration, and brain waves.

Reviewers at the NSF praised the innovative and interdisciplinary nature of the project and noted that it fits well with the institutional mission of Ithaca College to support experiential and performance-based learning, including collaborative research. It began with casual conversations about integrative health among faculty members in various disciplines. "There was a lot of support for such an effort from around campus," says Eugenia Wacker-Hoeflin, who teaches dance in the theater arts department. Indeed, collaborating faculty come from across the College: Hugh Stephenson and Andrea White from psychology and Wacker-Hoeflin and Krista Scott from theater arts (H&S); Charles Ciccone '75 and Nick Quarrier '76 from physical therapy and Jeff Ives from exercise science (HSHP); and Carol McAmis from the School of Music. They're all excited at the potential for new approaches to research across their disciplines.

The "mind-body laboratory," located in Williams Hall, has been partly equipped with instruments, including computer-based systems for measuring psychophysiological responses, presenting stimuli and recording reaction times with millisecond accuracy, creating digital video presentations, and analyzing motion. This new technology will allow for scientific research on the nature of mind-body interactions at a level of sophistication not usually available to undergraduates.

Faculty have already begun some projects with their students on a variety of subjects; other projects are in the planning stages. Psychology professor Vaughn, for example, is collaborating with 27 of Wacker-Hoeflin's dance students on research involving their own body image and its effect on physiology relating to movement. She did an assessment at the beginning of the semester using the lab's equipment. "We measured several physiological responses to completing various tasks relating to body image and how they relate to their dancing -- heart rate and other measures," says Vaughn. "We're also looking to see whether these measures change over the course of the semester."

This is the first project to be done in the lab. "We're still figuring out the process -- how to best use the equipment, get the data coordinated, work with undergraduate lab assistants," says Vaughn. Lauren Prone '05 and Erin Tooley '05 are the assistants trained to use the equipment.

Psychology professor Stephenson and PT's Quarrier are planning to use the lab with students taking Abnormal Psychology. "We'll look at physiological reactions to anxiety," says Stephenson, "such as heart rate and galvanic skin response, to get a sense of the physiological aspects of emotions." The two have submitted a grant to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (which awards the Grammys) to look at performance-related injuries in musicians and music students. "We'd use the lab to research students' level of psychological stress and its relation to physiological injuries," explains Stephenson.

Rader is delighted with the new lab and the possibilities it holds for those in psychology and the other fields involved. "It has been energizing to hear the ideas faculty members are coming up with as they brainstorm new ways to use the lab and equipment. This will be a boon to the kinds of work we can do at the College, and it gives our students a tremendous advantage. I am eager to see the results of all the research."