Nadia Lonnberg ‘25 and Evan Harrison ‘27 presented a poster “Popular media usage and its impact on learning” (based on Lonnberg's St. Mary's Project) at the Psychonomic Society 66th Annual Meeting held November 20-23 in Denver, Colorado. Assistant Professor of Psychology Nayantara Kurpad oversaw Lonnberg’s Psi Chi Honor Society-funded SMP research and was named on the poster as well; she is currently mentoring Harrison in directed research that is an extension of Lonnberg's SMP.
The experimental study examines whether integrating pop-culture media clips into psychology lectures meaningfully enhances learning. Participants recruited through Cloud Research were randomly assigned to view brief instructional lessons either with or without pop-culture references embedded. Across multiple measures—including immediate and delayed test performance, judgments of learning (JOLs) and cognitive load—results showed no significant differences between the pop-culture and no-pop conditions. Although participants generally found the material engaging and demonstrated appropriate cognitive load patterns, the inclusion of pop-culture clips did not improve learning outcomes or metacognitive accuracy. Performance significantly declined over time for all participants, as expected, and JOLs showed a similar (though nonsignificant) dip. The project concluded that while pop culture can be used without harming learning, it does not inherently enhance comprehension or retention. They emphasized the importance of thoughtful instructional design and noted that further in-person data collection of college students is underway to explore when media-based examples might meaningfully support engagement and long-term learning.
Elizabeth Poissant ‘25 presented on her SMP (also conducted under Kurpad's mentorship) titled “The CSI Effect and its Impact on Jury Decision Making.“ In simple terms, the "CSI Effect" refers to how an individual's habitual viewing of crime-related television shows impacts how they may perceive the evidence presented in a trial and, in turn, influence their decisions of guilt in court as a juror. The present study examined the impacts of the CSI Effect on jurors' engagement with eyewitness evidence. Specifically, it was aimed to understand how a juror's engagement with crime-related television shows affects their perception of eyewitness evidence presented in trial, influences their final decision of guilt, and further impacts their confidence in their decision. While previous literature has found a significant influence of the CSI Effect, the present study indicated that there were no significant differences between the participants' level of engagement and their decision of guilt or their confidence in that decision. Future research on the CSI Effect is critical, as jurors should be aware of any potential biases or influences their habitual entertainment choices could have on their perceptions of presented evidence and their decisions regarding the guilt of a defendant.
