Meta-Analysis on Emotion Regulation and Language

Nicole Damiani, Verrazzano Class of 2024, completed major in Psychology and minor in ASL

I began my capstone during the fall 2022 semester, and familiarized myself with Dr. Patricia Brook’s research lab. I worked as a research assistant, helping graduate students with their studies either by via Zoom and with in-person sessions. I continued in spring 2023 in the lab for independent study credit, and continued working until I found a subject I was interested in. I worked one-on-one with a graduate student, Elizabeth Che, and the topic of our research was investigating the role that developmental language disorder (DLD) has on emotion recognition, understanding, and regulation within both DLD and non-DLD children. We decided to conduct a meta-analysis, a huge combination of research papers all analyzed and extracted into one paper. We extracted data from each study to obtain raw numbers for our figures.

I began writing my honors thesis in fall 2023, meeting with Liz and/or Patty every Monday via Zoom or in-person. We would set goals for the week which kept me on track, and I would spend hours every weekend on my paper. At the end of March 2024, my thesis was approved so I could obtain honors in the major of Psychology. The journey was not finished yet, as I also began my poster for the Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) on May 2^nd.

My paper will eventually be submitted for publication, which means that I am still updating my work. Overall, I am grateful I have experienced working on an honors thesis. I believe that this was a major reason I have been accepted into one of CSI’s very selective graduate programs. While I do not plan on pursuing research in the future, my experience has been a rewarding and unique opportunity.