DB's Pixnet

the psychologist april 2012   

Page 292, 

The person in psychological science 

Alison Lee, from her perspective in neuropsychology, argues that psychologists need to get to know their participants 

One of the reasons I enjoy being a neuropsychological researcher is that it allows me the time to get to know my participants. I mostly work with people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a movement disorder primarily affecting the elderly, and they typically approach the lab with some trepidation. The idea of a laboratory, not to mention the idea of a psychologist, can be quite scary, especially when you are ill. I learned pretty early in my career that it would make more sense to collect data from people who were relaxed, because then they would both understand and be engaged in the process of research. 

...For example, when one participant(I will call her Susie) who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease visited my lab, I noticed that she had nasty scrapes and dents along one side of her car. When I asked if she had been in an accident, she told me that it was because she always hit the left gatepost when pulling onto her drive. She continued doing so even after the drive had been widened. 

I found this really interesting because I had previously been involved with a questionnaire study that revealed that some patients always bumped into the same side of a doorway(Lee & Harris, 2001). Susie's problem sounded very similar(but more expensive). When this was examined experimentally, we found that some people diagnosed with Parkinson's disease had a small but consistent visual neglect of one side of stimuli... 

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,   

May 26, 2012, Saturday,   

National Central Library,

Taipei City