Tanner is a junior at the University of North Georgia who is majoring in psychology with a minor in criminal justice and biology. His interests in psychology include visual impacts on memory, cortical regions of the brain and their memory functions, and long-term memory retention. He is currently working on his first research project which includes the role of color priming on visual short-term memory in a partial-report paradigm. He plans on pursuing a PhD in neuropsychology and wants to utilize his degree to further research in dementia-related diseases.

Patsy is a fourth-year student at the University of North Georgia. She is currently working toward her bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in human services. Her interests are focused on cognitive and abnormal psychology. In the spring of 2021, Patsy began working in the Hale Vision Lab under the direction of Dr. Ralph Hale. After joining Hale Vision Lab, Patsy started as a student panelist for the Office of Student Integrity as well as a mentor for the Peer Mentorship Program at the University of North Georgia. In the summer of 2021, she was hired as a paid research assistant through UNG’s Faculty Undergraduate Summer Experience (FUSE) program. In this eight-week program, she worked alongside Dr. Hale and a fellow research assistant to develop a research project, recruit participants, collect data, clean and analyze data, and present progress and findings after each milestone (four presentations in all). This project focused on the relationship between ambiguous figure/ground organization and a visual phenomenon called the watercolor illusion (WCI). The results from this project were presented in a poster session at the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA) in March of 2022. Later that semester, Patsy presented a follow-up study related to the WCI in a poster session at the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), an international visual perception conference. This study and presentation further examined the interactions between the WCI, luminance contrast, and figure/ground organization. UNG’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (CURCA) awarded travel grants to fund travel to both SEPA and VSS. Patsy continued to study relationship between the WCI, luminance contrast, and figure/ground organization in various conditions throughout Fall 2022 and into Spring 2023. Patsy collaborated to write a manuscript detailing these recent WCI experiments, which was submitted to a high-impact journal for publication consideration in early 2023. Through a travel grant funded by CURCA, she presented the lab’s research in a poster session at SEPA in March of 2023. She later presented a three-part study on the WCI in a poster session at VSS in May of 2023, where she was awarded the National Eye Insitute Research Travel Grant. Patsy will begin her independent research project in the fall of 2023 under the guidance of Dr. Ralph Hale, in which she will investigate the spatial and object variability of mental imagery and aphantasia. Following graduation, Patsy plans on attending graduate school to obtain a PhD in psychology. Her hope is to apply her experience in research as a policy analyst to improve accessibility across the nation.  

Erin is graduated from UNG in 2023, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Neuroscience. She has an interest in cognitive psychology related to attention, memory, sensation, and perception. She is chapter president for UNG Gainesville Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), an international organization that aims to mend the many incomprehensible policies related to drugs in this country. She participated in SSDP’s Psychedelic Pipeline mentorship program as a mentee where she created a harm reduction peer support group with the support of UNG’s counseling center. Additionally, she volunteers with Dancesafe, a harm-reduction organization. Her research interests include visual perception and the way we use our memory to interpret new stimuli. In Fall 2020, she started a novel research project on fragile memory. During Spring 2021 she presented her research at UNG’s Annual Research Conference (ARC) and plans to present new findings at additional conferences in the near future. She was awarded the 2021 Outstanding Psychology Student Researcher award for the Gainesville campus. She was also accepted into the University of Georgia's Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in Neuroscience (NSURE) program, an NHI-funding training program designed to provide an immersive biomedical research experience for the next generation of underrepresented students in the biomedical sciences. Erin plans to pursue a Ph.D. to further her research in these many areas of interest. In 2022, Erin co-authored a publication in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. Click here to read that article. 

Miranda is a graduated student at the University of North Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in business administration. She has interests in the field of social psychology as demonstrated in a study titled “How phubbing affects group interaction” where she examined college student perceptions of phone usage in social interactions. Due to her interests in behavioral health, Miranda has worked locally with Avita Community Partners in Gainesville, GA at the Women’s Treatment and Support Program. This opportunity has helped her gain hands-on training with substance abuse in nearly a dozen women and children - an opportunity that has provided useful insight into her future goals and aspirations related to mental health. Miranda has also acquired a passion in environmental psychology including specifically how outdoor activities, fresh air, and interactions with nature can help those struggling with depression and anxiety disorders. Miranda also fosters a love of animals which has led to a desire to research animal behavior, animal cognition, the evolution of social behaviors, animal perceptual processes, and the efficacy of emotional support animals. As well as being a full-time student, Miranda works full-time in the service industry. Additionally she works part-time as a Lab Assistant for the Psychology Department at UNG. She is a member of the UNG’s First Year Foundation Peer Mentor group, engaging with over ten assigned freshmen mentees per semester. Miranda plans to complete a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology where she hopes to answer a variety of behavior, health, and cognition-related questions through her research in the program.