Michi Matsukura, assistant professor of psychology, has received the National Research Foundation: Major Research Instrumentation (NSF: MRI) award—the first MRI award that Drake University has received in its history. The award allows Michi and her College of Business and Public Administration (CBPA) faculty collaborators to conduct a series of studies, using the eye-tracking system with capabilities of gaze-contingency programming (the paradigm that allows a computer display to change as a function of where an observer is looking) and pupillometry (the technique that measures changes in the diameter of the pupil as a function of cognitive processing). The CPBA research team is composed of Andrew Bryant (Marketing), Brian Vander Naald (Economics), Heath Henderson (Economics), Lori Solsma (Accounting), Alanah Mitchell (Information Systems), and Terri Vaughan (Actuarial Sciences).

Michi says, “I am extremely grateful to NSF for recognizing (1) this unique collaboration between visual cognition research and decision sciences as well as (2) our efforts to include and support a diverse range of students and faculty in the projects. Besides my own line of visual information-processing work, the system allows us to conduct a series of experiments to identify possible cognitive mechanisms that guide individuals’ ultimate behaviors, in the respective fields of the CBPA research collaborators. I am really excited to have this opportunity.”