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Psychology Students Ask the Experts

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Psychology Students Ask the Experts

20 of Notre Dame’s students gained an insight into the work and research of psychologists on Thursday June 17, thanks to the I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here website.

This website offers a STEM enrichment activity connecting students with scientists through energetic real-time text-based chats. For our A-level psychologists, this enabled them to ask a plethora of questions to an educational psychologist, a swearing and mental health researcher, a health psychologist specialising in cancer behaviours, a sleep researcher, and a social psychologist who specialises in bystander intervention.

Assistant Head of Psychology Mr. Tom Humphreys said, “It was a great session with many memorable questions from our students, but this is one of the best:”

Q: What could dreaming in black and white indicate through a psychologist's perspective?

A: Ooh, I LOVE this question. So we dream in different sleep stages: stage 2, SWS (slow-wave sleep) and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Stage 2 and SWS tends to involve more 'monotonous' dreams where you can clearly see the link to real life, these are often seen in black and white or greyscale. Dreams that occur during REM are emotionally charged due to emotional processing going on at the same time and are often more vivid/colourful/bizarre.

Our students thoroughly enjoyed grilling the experts, and now have a clearer idea about some of the roles that a degree in psychology could lead to.

 You can visit the I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here website here.

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