Merrimack College

Scan Lab

Social Cognition and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Lab at Merrimack College

Our research broadly examines the mechanisms by which behaviors, emotions, and memories can be altered by our past experiences or external/internal factors and can be improved by interventions.

Our research broadly examines the mechanisms by which behaviors, emotions, and memories can be altered by our past experiences or external/internal factors and can be improved by interventions.

Any students interested in joining the lab, please email Professors Seitchik and Kurdziel. We are always looking for willing research assistants to assist in our research experiments!

Some classes will allow you to participate in research to earn course credit or extra credit. To schedule participation in studies for credit we use a website called SONA. We have several studies in which we are able to pay participants for their time through Amazon or Dunkin Donuts gift cards. The payment amount is dependent on the length of time spent participating in the research study.

Publications and News

Here are some of our selected and relevant publications. Some of these documents are protected by various copyright laws, therefore they may only be used for personal research. Any other use is prohibited. By clicking on the links below, you are requesting a personal copy of the article. You can also request copies of these papers by emailing concussionresearch@merrimack.edu.

Scan Lab Photo Gallery

Social Cognition and Affective Neuroscience logo

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We strive to create a lab that values and fully includes individuals from diverse backgrounds, identities, beliefs, values, perspective, experiences, and ideas. This lab is committed to creating a trusting and collaborative environment where diversity will be respected including differences in race, religion, class, sexual orientation, gender and gender-identity, age, body-type, disability, and psychological struggle. We seek to recruit, train, and support individuals from diverse backgrounds and those from historically underrepresented groups. Research even suggests that diverse labs can be more successful. It is our duty as scientists to provide an inclusive environment that respects and represents the world in which we study and hope to provide possible interventions for. This is a collaborative, open, and iterative process where we are continuously trying to obtain this inclusive goal within our lab. We acknowledge that we will make mistakes, as we all do, but we must learn and take corrective actions.

Frequently asked questions

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Yes! The electrodes simply record naturally occurring electricity that is produced in your brain. We are not altering your brainwaves at all with the electrodes, and they are very commonly used to look at sleep and waking brain activity. 

Yes, you can! If you need contacts or glasses to see, we do insist you wear them during all eye tracking tasks. We will work with them, though sometimes it is difficult with very strong prescriptions, glasses with strong anti-glare coating, and bi-focals.

In our SCAN concussion research, we need to examine both people who have had a concussion and people who have never had a concussion (controls) to really understand what a concussion does to someone’s behavior. So we are looking for both people who have recently had a concussion AND people who have never had a concussion! We also do a number of other research projects that are not concussion-focused at all and we would love for you to participate!

For most of our research studies you must be 18 years of age or older to participate. You also must have normal, or corrected-to normal vision. For some, but not all of our studies you must have either had a recent concussion, or have never had a concussion.
If you are in a class that allows for psychology research participation for extra credit, we can give you that extra credit through SONA. If you are unsure, feel free to ask your professor or us if this is a possibility. Extra credit points are based on the length of the study and will vary depending on the study (or studies) in which you participate.

For some of our research projects we are able to pay you for your time in either Amazon or Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards (participant’s choice). Gift card amounts are based on the length of the study and will vary depending on the study (or studies) in which you participate.

No! In fact we have had students of many different majors participate in our data collection. We would discuss with you whether this research would count as an elective course towards your major or as general elective. Feel free to reach out for more information.

Yes! We will be collecting data over summer breaks – if you are in the area and would like to either help us collect data as part of our team, or if you would like to participate in our studies, please reach out!

Questions?

Contact ConcussionResearch@merrimack.edu to get more information on the project.