Research at Clemson University holds the promise of making the World Wide Web a user-friendly place for everyone, young and old.

Richard PakRichard Pak, an assistant professor of psychology, has received a $50,000 gift from Google to study how older adults navigate the Web and what Web site design features make searches easier. The grant will fund an extension of his research on aging and technology.

"The study of cognitive aging is all about finding out how our minds change as we get older. The results from decades of research are that some things get worse but also that some things improve with age," Pak said. "For example, our ability to solve abstract problems might get worse as we get older. However, at the same time, other things get better as we get older. Just by virtue of being alive longer, we ‘know' more information."

Pak said one example is seen in a well-known finding in the cognitive aging literature. That finding is that older adults, those age 60 and over, have better verbal abilities and general knowledge than younger adults between 18 and 27.

Pak's recently published paper, "Designing an information search interface for younger and older adults," compiled his research into how these strengths might be applied to Web navigation.

"The findings are that when you take a Web site and organize it hierarchically — like how you might organize your documents on your computer with folders within folders — older adults are much slower and make more errors when they are searching for information compared to younger adults," Pak said. "We think that this is the case because the situation does not allow older adults to use their greater knowledge toward the situation. However, when you take that same Web site and organize it around keywords or concepts instead of folders, older adults are able to bring their wealth of general knowledge to the situation and perform almost equivalently to younger adults in the task."

That is, older adults seem to perform better using so-called "tag-based sites," which are Web sites that organize their information around frequently used keywords. Pak said that while tag-based sites are still relatively new, several popular sites use tags. These include Amazon.com, Gmail.com, and the photo sharing Web site Flickr.com.

Pak said that future research into the topics of older adults' Web use will combine objective measures, such as bringing participants into the lab to observe how many navigation errors they make, with subjective measures such as interviews and focus groups aimed at determining why older adults have trouble with technology.

"Of course, this research couldn't happen without the willingness of older adults from the community. When we have new studies, we call our list of older adults from the area and they are always more than happy to come in to do a study," Pak said.

Ultimately, he hopes that his work will help make Web navigation a better experience for participants like these.

"While my results are a bit far from direct application and more research is needed, eventually I'd like to figure out how to design an information-retrieval interface that is usable for people of all ages," Pak said. "Accessing information online is rapidly moving from convenience to necessity and if we don't tackle issues of access, the existing digital divide will only get greater."

The foundation is a non-profit organization established by the Federal Republic of Germany for the promotion of international research cooperation. It enables highly qualified scholars not living in Germany to spend extended periods for research in Germany and promotes the ensuing academic contacts.

The fellowship will support a year of research. Muth will work with his German sponsor, Paul Enck, director of research of the Department of Internal Medicine, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Hospitals Tubingen.

Muth and Enck will research eating disorders.

"I am very excited about the opportunity to build international collaborations and get reacquainted to a research area that I have been away from for some time," Muth said.

As a graduate student, Muth worked in the area of gastrointestinal psychophysiology and completed a dissertation examining factors that influence functional dyspepsia, a disorder of the upper gastrointestinal tract associated with symptoms such as nausea and bloating with no apparent physiological cause. However, following graduate school, he spent three years in the US Navy as an aerospace experimental psychologist working on applied human factors problems.

"Much of the research I have completed here at Clemson has been a continuation of that applied human factors work," he said. "Recently, Dr. Adam Hoover, my collaborator here at Clemson, and I have become interested in developing biofeedback devices to help individuals become more aware of their physiological need to eat. My fellowship and collaboration with Dr. Enck will form the basic science foundation for the applied work we are doing here at Clemson."

Muth will examine the utility of a "water load test" to differentiate between genders, eating patterns and healthy subjects versus patients with eating disorders and obesity. The long-term goal of this work, according to Muth, is to determine if the maladaptive component of an eating disorder or obese patient's eating pattern is perceptual, physiological or both. This would potentially allow for treatment to be focused on correcting the perceptual, physiological or mixed problem. For example, individuals with maladaptive eating patterns could be given biofeedback from their stomach's electrical rhythms and trained to pay more attention to their physiological state, allowing them to adopt a better eating pattern.

Clemson Vice President for Research and Economic Development Chris Przirembel said the Humboldt Research Fellowship is highly competitive and awarded only to researchers who are recognized internationally for their academic qualifications.

"It is an honor for Clemson University to have one of our faculty members receive this internationally prestigious fellowship," he said. "We look forward to seeing the results of professor Muth's work and the long-term impact of the associated collaborative research programs."

The Humboldt Foundation promotes an active worldwide network of scholars. Individual sponsorship during periods spent in Germany and longstanding follow-up contacts have been hallmarks of the foundation's work since 1953. For more information go to http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/index.htm.

For more information about Clemson's graduate programs in psychology, please visit: www.clemson.edu/psych/graduate/index.htm.

Caron St. John, associate dean of the College of Business and Behavioral Science at Clemson University, has received the Dr. Charles Townes Individual Achievement Award for outstanding leadership, innovation and technological excellence in the Upstate community.

St. John is the founder and director of the Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Clemson and director of the MBA program.

The Dr. Charles Townes Individual Achievement Award honors an individual who exhibits a commitment to the advancement of technology and the Upstate community through technology-oriented contributions. Such contributions may be business, civic and/or educational in nature and must benefit the Upstate.

InnoVision is the premier awards program focused exclusively on celebrating achievements in innovation and technological excellence in the South Carolina Upstate region. The following 10 counties are in the South Carolina Upstate region: Abbeville, Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg and Union.

For more information about Clemson's graduate programs in the College of Business and Behavioral Science, visit http://business.clemson.edu/.

Kristin Moore (human factors psychology) was awarded the Department of Defense (DoD) Science, Mathematics, And Research for Transformation (SMART) Defense Scholarship administered by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). SMART scholarships are awarded to students who have demonstrated ability and special aptitude for training and education in science, technology, engineering & mathematics (STEM). The scholarship includes a yearly stipend of $38,000, full tuition and related education fees, health insurance, a book allowance of $1,000, paid summer internships and career opportunities after graduation.

Jenna Scisco (human factors psychology) is the recipient of the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense. Scisco's application was selected by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research from more than 3,400 applications that were received. The NDSEG Fellowship covers tuition and required fees for three years and provides a yearly stipend of approximately $31,000.

Laurie Wasko (industrial-organziational psychology) was awrded the first Joyce and Thayer Fellowship in I-O psychology. The Joyce and Thayer Fellowship is designed to provide financial support to a single outstanding doctoral student in I-O psychology who is specializing in training and development and/or selection and placement. The fellowship provides an annual award of $10,000 (from start of academic year through the following summer). In addition, Laurie's selection was recognized during the plenary session at the SIOP annual conference in New York City.