Troy, N.Y. - Government officials, community leaders, academic researchers, and students from the Capital Region joined to officially mark the opening of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory (SBRL) on Oct. 3. The facility is housed in the historic Gurley Building at 21 Union Street in downtown Troy.

Under the auspices of Rensselaer's School of Humanities and Social Sciences (H&SS), the 8,500-square-foot SBRL will encompass research focused on the social, cognitive, and behavioral effects of information technology. The facility will support basic research and graduate instruction in psychology, communication, cognitive science, informatics, and technology studies.

"The renaissance at Rensselaer continues with the opening of the Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory. This high-tech, state-of-the-art facility will provide a foundation for basic research in the humanities and social sciences that can be applied in countless ways to improve how people communicate, learn, work, and play," said H&SS Dean John P. Harrington. "We are also pleased to be strengthening our ties to the City of Troy, both through the community-based research initiatives in the lab and because of our location in the historic Gurley Building."

The SBRL houses research suites with eye-gaze recording systems, multiple video and audio recording systems, and an Internet2 connection. The lab is equipped with digital-editing systems, programming workstations, and streaming video Web servers. A 20-foot-by-28-foot open room with an immersive virtual-reality studio, equipped with a full-motion-tracking system, also is part of the facility. The SBRL has two focus-group research rooms for accommodating groups of up to 12 participants, with one- and two-way mirrors, and two-camera video observation and recording capability.

In addition, the SBRL contains a professional-grade, 10-station, computer-aided telephone and Web survey research lab. A configurable open space is available for workshops, discussions, presentations, and large-group data collection.

"This lab will help to promote cross-disciplinary research efforts in the humanities and social sciences by providing a space for interaction among researchers of different backgrounds and training," says James Watt, SBRL director and chair of the Language, Literature, and Communication Department.

Key research initiatives, showcased during a tour of the new facility, include cognitive research on virtual-reality training techniques; research on how the Internet is changing political campaign practices in the 2004 U.S. presidential election; research on the design of interactive educational technologies for K-12 students; and improving the graphical and text usability of handheld digital devices.

A number of centers and research initiatives at Rensselaer will utilize the SBRL resources, including the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC), the Troy Community Networking Project, the Center for Cultural Design, and the Human-Computer Interaction Research Center.

Contact: Jodi Ackerman
Phone: (518) 276-6531
E-mail: N/A