BBC Uses PowerLab to Probe Personality
UK residents can see PowerLab in action on BBC iPlayer this week as part of Sunday night's Child of Our Time television programme.
Child of Our Time is broadcast annually, and follows the development of 25 children born in the year 2000. This year's episode was subtitled The Big Personality Test, and explored how the children's personalities are developing, as well as inviting viewers to complete an online test that measures their personality in relation to five traits - openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
The exercise that features PowerLab observed how a group of adults who tested as having different levels of neuroticism reacted when asked to count backwards from 1000 in 7s (993, 986, 979...). Their heart rate was measured using a finger pulse transducer connected to a PowerLab system, and data was displayed in LabChart software.
Dr Tom Johnstone from the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience & Neurodynamics and the Department of Psychology at the University of Reading (below left) joined the programme's host, Professor Lord Robert Winston, in observing the data and commenting on the volunteers' behavioural and physiological reactions to the task.
UK residents will be able to view the programme on BBC iPlayer until 10pm, Sunday June 6 2010. The exercise using PowerLab systems starts 30 minutes into the programme.
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01 June 2010
