Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The equipment requested supports a vibrant and highly-collaborative research program that seeks to answer a fundamental question: How do autonomic physiology, cognitions, and behaviour coordinate in real time and how do these processes develop across the critical period of adolescence (i.e., the dynamics of concordance at multiple time scales)? To do so, we record and analyze adolescents' second-by-second coordinated interactions among sympathetic arousal, parasympathetic activity, expressive behaviour, and cognitive appraisals during various stressful and non-stressful circumstances. This research requires integrated and synchronized recording of these components for high-level analyses revealing dynamic patterns across development. However, the integrated system is now 15 years old, obsolete and requiring up-to-date equipment to replace failing parts and to maintain compatibility with PC hardware and operating systems. Within 2 years, the research program will grind to a halt if the requested components are not installed. ******We request funds for: (1) a recording system to provide the necessary components to be able to record electrocardiogram, skin conductance, and respiration from up to 3 participants simultaneously, synchronized with 3 video streams (one per participant). The recording system also allows for participant input (e.g., ongoing cognitive appraisals) synchronized with the physiological and video recordings. (2) an analysis system for processing and analyzing these dense, real-time data: physiological data cleaning and processing as well as the observational coding system to create behavioural time series. (3) a fully integrated back-up system for the terabytes of data files that proliferate from this system as part of our thriving research program.******Supported by two NSERC Discovery grants since 2010, our current system has supported 18 undergraduate theses, 9 Master's theses, and 5 PhD dissertations, also providing training for over 100 research assistants, and fostering dozens of collaborations within the university and across the world. This infrastructure supports a diverse and inclusive range of HQP, almost all of whom have been women, who receive the highest level of training to support their burgeoning careers. The impact of this research program is very strong and it is accelerating. Moreover, this impact includes collaborators and HQP in the lab, the department, at the university, across Canada, and around the world. The requested equipment is vital for making sure that we can push beyond what we have accomplished so far to provide unique insights into adolescent socioemotional development and functioning, an area of dire concern for society as a whole but for which we have woefully inadequate understanding. **