Stress-Induced Neurospatial Activation Patterns (SNAP) is a new collaborative project between the School of Information and Library Science and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center (School of Medicine. The study’s primary aim is to understand human-computer interaction using a new basis of evidence, namely neuronal patterns generated as a response to conducting complex information retrieval tasks. The study also aims to develop a means to automatically screen mental deficits or degraded mental capacity based on data directly collected from human-computer interaction.
The project is currently piloting a new methodology which involves engaging subjects in simple information retrieval tasks inside an MRI machine and collecting both behavioral and physiological data. The fMRI data will allow identification of Neuronal Activation Patterns (NAPs) associated with information retrieval task. These will be correlated with established behavioral theoretical frameworks.
The long-term goal of the project is to apply the newly developed methodologies in clinical practice for identification of progressive neuro-deficit disorders associated with aging.
