Neuropsychology Dissertation help!?

Question

Hello, I am a second year psychology student and I am doing my dissertation within the field of neuropsychology. More specifically I am doing it on that way that the directional movements of the eyes are controlled by the contralateral hemisphere, meaning that we can gauge the activation of each brain hemisheres by observing the movements of the eyes allowing us to examine brain activation indirectly.
However, I am struggling in coming up with a research hypothesis that I can investigate and a way of investigating it. General questions in this area include why do we move our eyes while we are thinking? What does this reveal about brain activity? and, what is the relationship between the activity of the eyes and the thought processes that engaged our minds?
Any help would be fantastic, thankyou very much!

Answer 1

My primary area of research is also in visual perception. Specifically I'm interested in visual attention and how it can be controlled (either by the observer or the display).



I don't do much within the neuroscience domain but am familiar with a few folks who do. If you'd like I'd be happy to give you their names and some selected work. Most of these folks deal with eye-tracking (e.g., Zelinsky, McCarley, & Byrne) but a couple do use fMRI and EEG recordings (e.g., Kaniwisher, Luck, & Corbetta). Let me know if you need additional references or if you have already conducted your lit review.

Answer 2

What occurs to me is for you to examine how anxiety can be modified, controlled and lessened by moving the eyes all over the place and flooding the brain with all kinds of images and helping it to redirect its efforts to anything but being frustrated and upset. You are probably aware that eye movement is a way to diffuse anxiety, and I would have you look deeper into that because I believe it is well documented, but not too definitive and would still permit you enough latitude so you could discover the direction which would best permit your explorations for dissertation purposes.

Answer 3

When I did psychology we did a really interesting study about how REM relates directly to what people are dreaming about - it's in the 'Key Studies in Psychology' book used in some A-Level exams. Sorry I can't remember the name of the publisher, or the specific investigating psychologist. Your area sounds slightly different, but it is partly related never-the-less.



Why not just make a list of things for people to think about and record their related eye movements by camera?

Answer 4

I love neurology but sometimes I wonder why it's important to know? People have lived thousands of years not knowing which hemisphere was active when there eyes moved.Still its an interesting t topic.



I guess you would just have subjects read? whilst doing a MRI scan and observe mathematically the increments of eye movement/

Answer 5

If you can get on the University of Durham website (psychology department) try and get email addresses for Prof Findlay and/or Prof Heywood, or download some of their research. I studied under them and they'll know all the answers to your problems.

Answer 6

particular, you will probable could desire to apply some information on your dissertation. between each of the countless specializations in scientific psych, neuropsych isn't any doubt one in each of the main quantitatively orientated, in part because of the fact it does not lend itself properly to qualitative analyses (while in comparison with psychotherapy examine, and so on.). in many situations, for examine purposes (including your dissertation), at minimum you may desire to have some facility with multivariate regression and subject-loose repeated measures designs (e.g., repeated-measures ANOVA) -- it may desire to be maximum efficient to have the potential to coach different extra greater suggestions in many situations utilized in psychology (e.g., SEM, HLM, improve curve modeling), yet they won't be necessary. after all, on your dissertation besides as previous, you may desire to have the potential to get some help working the analyses with the aid of statistical consulting components at your college -- so, you will no longer could desire to circulate it on my own. What could be extra significant is with the flexibility to interpret and clarify the analyses of course on your objective industry, including your committee. interior the daily purposes of a practising scientific neuropsychologist (in a scientific putting), i think of it may be extra significant to be facile with descriptive information. as long as you are able to suitable and effectively calculate and interpret norm-referenced scores (e.g., known scores, t-scores, z-scores, and so on.), you may desire to be fantastic. even regardless of the undeniable fact that, you may nevertheless decide to have some background in utilized stats so as which you would be able to comprehend and accurately interpret examine and manuals suitable on your artwork. desire this permits. solid success!