Along with colleagues in Design (Laura Malinin), Computer Science (Francisco Ortega), Health and Exercise Science (Heather Leach), and Landscape Architecture (Kelly Curl), and in partnership with the City of Fort Collins, we created a modifiable VR model of a portion of Old Town Fort Collins, which we are using to test how various changes to the environment impact walking behavior.
This study hopes to examine how different types of workstations could affect human performance, including mood, stress responses, motivation, and cognitive performance.
This mixed-methods study examines how information about a university affects expectations of academic success and overall experience at that institution.
We are currently recruiting participants to complete an online anonymous survey (10-15 min) or an interview (<60 min). We are also recruiting RAs to conduct these interviews.
If you are interested in being an RA or participant, please contact Amanda via email (amanda.spitzer@colostate.edu).
Along with veterinarian collaborators, led by Colleen Duncan and Felix Duerr, we are working to simultaneously promote human and animal health through dog walking programs. This work began at CSU's Veterinary Teaching Hospital and is now being extended to private practice veterinary clinics in Northern Colorado.
Our lab has conducted many studies assessing the impacts of nutrition labels on consumer behavior, including food choices and visual attention. We are interested in understanding how different types of labels impact the ways that consumers decide what products to choose.
In collaboration with partners in multiple departments at CSU (Health & Exercise Science, Human Development & Family studies, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Marketing), we were undertaking research, funded in part by CSU Ventures, exploring innovative ways to support physical activity in classrooms to promote physical and mental health and enhanced content learning and retention.
Together with CSU colleagues in Psychology (Drs. Jessi Witt and Anne Cleary) and Math (Dr. Mary Pilgrim), with funding from The Institute for Learning and Teaching at CSU, we were incorporating the enactment of abstract concepts into undergraduate STEM instruction to help students learn through movement.
Together with Dr. Rachel Lucas-Thompson (CSU Department of Human Development and Family Studies), and Dr. Gina Mohr (CSU College of Business), this work, funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Colorado School of Public Health at CSU, was examining how parents and children together select products from a laboratory set up as a grocery aisle. Both parent and child wore eye-tracking glasses during this task, and participant pairs were randomly assigned to one of four conditions based on two types of front-of-package nutrition labels and the presence or absence of an explanatory public service announcement describing the nutrition labels.
We were working with Dr. Christina Roberto (University of Pennsylvania), on examining how elements appearing on food packages, including front-of-package nutrition labels and licensed cartoon characters, relate to visual attention and product selections.
Together with Dr. Gina Mohr in CSU's Department of Marketing, we were working to understand how different presentations of nutrition information and different descriptions of the manner in which nutrition information should be interpreted relates to the use of this information by consumers and the products they select.
We were examining how different point-of-decision prompts influence perceptions of self and environment, and how these perceptions relate to subsequent physical activity behavior (e.g., choosing to take the stairs rather than an elevator/escalator).