Road Scholars

Step right up: research on the move. Megan Morr

Natural disasters, union picket lines, and even the North Carolina State Fair are all rife with opportunities for social-science research. But they also present challenges, say Duke researchers.

Enter the Research Mobile, a new forty-foot-long mobile laboratory that arrived on campus at the end of the fall semester. Researchers at the Duke Interdisciplinary Initiative in Social Psychology plan to use the mobile lab to conduct interviews and computer-based tests on subjects in the field. The unit is equipped with five soundproof cubicles with computers and audio-visual recording equipment, a larger room for small-group studies, and a psychophysiology measurement system capable of monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response, and respiration.