Young professor sees eye-tracking the future of USD's CoMPARE lab

One thing Assistant Professor Brandon Nutting has done that most 30 year olds haven't: stuck electrodes to people's heads.

Nutting is one of two faculty members from the Media & Journalism department that began the Communication, Media Psychology and Related Effects research (CoMPARE) lab more than two years ago.

The program, which includes at least nine undergraduate, graduate and doctoral student volunteers, works on multiple projects to collect physiological responses to media by the placement of censors on a person to determine involuntary measurements.

“The hope is to bring in more money to the department so we can keep building our facilities and the graduate program,” he said.

Nutting was initially recruited as a doctoral student from Texas Tech to join Associate Professor Miglena Sternadori at USD to initiate the media lab. Only about nine universities in the nation offer such a program.

"It had to take something special to get me to move to Texas," he said. 













Funding for the lab's equipment began with support from the Media & Journalism department and South Dakota Public Radio. The lab is self-sustaining now that it is set-up, said Nutting. New supplies will not be needed for the next two years, but the next major purchase for the researchers could be eye-tracking equipment.

Nutting said he hopes that as the lab grows, so will the number of regional and national contracts that the university will join. A recent lab contract includes a project with the South Dakota Comprehensive Cancer Control Program that would work to create a comprehensive website to increase the number of people who pursue clinical trials for cancer. 


Here's a look at what other programs around the country are doing:


Texas Tech University: The physiological measurement lab is an experimental laboratory for 

measuring psychophysiological responses to media messages, such as television commercials, video games or Internet applications. The Center for Communication Research (CCR) houses state-of-the art technology for studying all facets of audience response to media messages — video, audio, online, commercial, informational and more. The center contains more than 6,000 square feet of research labs and provides research services to those both within and beyond the Texas Tech community.


Stanford University: The Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory is a research laboratory designed for the study of emotion and emotion regulation. Some recent studies includes a project that works to understand the physiological, behavioral and experiential consequences of important emotion regulation strategies such as expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and rumination. There is also work being done to design a way to teach sixth- and seventh-graders a growth mindset of emotion regulation and give them emotion regulation strategies, with the goal of improving academic performance. 


University of Washington: The Psychophysiology and Behavioral Systems Lab (PBS LAB) at the University of Washington conducts state-of-the-art research into the etiology, course and treatment of development with the media. Recent research has focused on eye-tracking technology and using these results for several national contracts it has with ad agencies around the country. 

University of Missouri-Columbia: The PRIME (Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects) Lab is both a research and teaching laboratory devoted to the study of how different features of media affect the way people think, feel, and act. They conduct theory-driven, empirical research using psychophysiology and other behavioral science methods. One of their two main projects is monitoring the emotional responses to common online activities. Participants in the experiment use Facebook, Amazon.com and CNN.com. Heart rate, skin conductance and facial electromyography data were recorded and synchronized with a video record of each participants' activities. The goal of this study is to explore the motivation of different content changes online.


Pennsylvania State University:  The Media Effects Research Laboratory has two main wings. There is the Traditional Media wing, which examines the effects of television, film entertainment and video games. The other group is the New Media Wing, which examines the effects of online media and communications technology.

Check out a tour of USD's psychology-physiology lab below.

How to build a D-Days parade float

Members of the Cross Media Council at the University of South Dakota decided to create a parade float for Dakota Days. The video below captures the highs and lows of taking on such a project.

The year without its namesake: Al Neuharth Award 2014

Peter Prichard, former editor of USA Today, was awarded the 2014 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media. The Oct. 9 ceremony was the first to be held at the University of South Dakota since the death of media leader and USD graduate Al Neuharth. 

"It's a great honor to get the Neuharth Award. Al was a great innovator and great newspaper man. There are a lot of great people that got this award," Prichard said. "I don't really think I deserved it but I'm honored – humbled."

Prichard served as president of the Newseum and Freedom Forum until January 2009, and currently is chair of the Newseum board of trustees. He was editor of USA Today, the nation’s largest-circulation newspaper, from 1988 to 1995, longer than any other editor in the newspaper's history. 

During his tenure, USA Today won several national journalism awards, and its circulation increased from 1.4 million to 2.3 million — surpassing the Wall Street Journal.

Prichard joined the likes of Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric by receiving the honor. He was presented the award at an evening presentation, but was part of a panel discussion on politics and journalism earlier in the afternoon. 

The panel included Carson Walker, Associated Press news editor for the Dakotas; Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute; Chad Newswander, associate professor of political science at USD; and Prichard. 

Prichard said journalism does not seem as appealing for young people to get into because of statistics that read that only 40 percent of Americans believe the media is trustworthy and unbiased. 

"I would like to see more complete stories with more attention to fairness, with more thorough reporting and less opinion-driven journalism," he said. "We have all this great technology, it makes it possible really for almost anyone to be a journalist and get a story our there instantly. But a lot of it is not really very good, and often not fair, and sometimes not even true. I'd like to see higher standards."

Policinski would later host the award ceremony and said Prichard provided signal leadership at the nation’s first national newspaper and at the Newseum, the museum of news in Washington, D.C. that was started by Al Neuharth. 

“Peter added immensely to the success of each, and continues to help the Newseum be responsive to the continued changes in how news is gathered and reported,” Policinski said. 

Peter Prichard starts acceptance speech with remembering USD alum Al Neuharth. #MCOM325 pic.twitter.com/DjwG3EOBX7
— MiC (@IvesCard) October 9, 2014

Jan Neuharth, adult daughter of the late media mogul, introduced Prichard during the evening ceremony. The last person to receive the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media was Gwen Ifill, who received the 2013 recognition in June while working for PBS Newshour in Washington, D.C.

Prichard credited Al Neuharth with the major highlights of his career, but also spoke about the future of the industry. 

"It's the best of times and the worst of times. We have more access to news and information than ever, but part of the problem is that newspapers have been so damaged by the economic troubles that they don't have the reporting staffs to do the work that they used to do. That's a problem for readers and possibly for democracy," he said.