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 third-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. She is interested in understanding more about human memory systems, capacity limitations, and memory errors. She would also like to study the development and progression of psychological disorders, focusing on neurotypical children who develop atypicality in adulthood. In the spring of 2021, Patsy began working in the Hale Vision Lab under the direction of Dr. Ralph Hale. That summer, 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 final 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. Currently, Patsy is working collaboratively to write a manuscript detailing these recent WCI experiments. This manuscript will be submitted to a high-impact journal for publication consideration in late 2022. In addition, a new project in the Hale Vision Lab is being developed that will utilize specialized equipment in visual perception research including virtual reality and/or eye tracking. Patsy is working collaboratively with another undergraduate research assistant in the lab on this project. Following graduation, Patsy plans on attending graduate school to obtain a PhD in psychology.

Erin is a third-year student at UNG 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. Following graduation Erin plans to pursue a Ph.D. to further her research in these many areas of interest.

Miranda is a senior at the University of North Georgia who plans to graduate this fall 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.