Every waking second, a human eye can take in thousands of data points, translating light, shape and color into meaning. It happens instantaneously, a powerful and continuous instinct to make sense of the world around us — even when it shouldn’t make sense.
Ellington Cooke ’24 had an opportunity to work with Assistant Professor Anthony Cate on a project investigating that fundamental mental process, asking how we perceive patterns in random clusters of objects, like a field of scattered dots, one of the tools that Cate's research lab uses with test subjects.
By unraveling the commonalities in how people create order from chaos, light could be shed on larger questions about how we process and store information. The chance to join the project while still an undergraduate also helped Cooke sharpen his skills as he pursues plans to go onto graduate school and a career in clinical psychology.
"As I take the next steps in my studies and career, I anticipate that having research skills and a firsthand understanding of how the scientific process works will be hugely beneficial," he said.