Moravian College Student Scholarship and Creative Endeavors Day

Title: Human Illness Photos or War-Like Photos, Which is More Disturbing?
Students: Nadine Abdouche
Advisor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
Human Illness Photos or War-like Photos, Which is More Disturbing? Considerable evidence shows that what
an individual perceives plays a role on aversive emotions. Although there is research about what an individual
visualizes affects their mood, there is little evidence on what kinds of things they perceive that highly affects their
mood or emotion. I will study how negative photos affect my participant‘s mood. Subjects will look at two kinds
of photographs, war-like and human illness photos. There will be some filler positive photos as well. I
hypothesize that human illness photos will increase the subject‘s distress level more than war-like photographs.
The subjects will then be asked to fill out a likert-scale survey that measured their emotion. This research is
valuable to the world because everyone is exposed to sickness and war on a daily basis. This can help us
understand how distressful exposing such things as war and human sickness can be.
Title: Daoism and the Environment
Students: David Pizzolato
Advisor: Dr. Donald St.John
The current paradigm based on over-consumption has left a negative impact on the environment. Education will
be one of the most effective tools for creating a greener paradigm. The Daodejing contains philosophy that can
serve to awaken our environmental consciousness through the use of aphorisms along with the use of paradox
and hyperbole.The Polemic Aphorisms in the Daodejing can be used for environmental awareness by showing its
polemic target and what it is targeted against, the use of images for identification with an experience, and the
positive value it expresses. The use of paradox and hyperbole works with the counteractive role of aphorisms to
make them more prominent and also serve to free people from being trapped in patterns of thought. Through the
targeting of mentalities and the use of images that surround the target, The Daodejing can serve as a pathway to
a greener paradigm. The vision of the good in the Daodejing is described by Michael LaFargue as "Organic
Harmony" which is the cultivation of the way on an intrapersonal, interpersonal, social, political and
environmental levels.
Title: The Effect of Dream Journaling on Memory Consolidation
Students: Rianne Stowell
Advisor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
This experiment tests the hypothesis that dream journaling facilitates the consolidation of visual stimuli by
improving the proficiency of dream recall. There will be two groups participating in the study, one that journals
immediately upon waking and a control group that does not journal. Both groups will be presented with
landscape paintings paired with titles and artists at the beginning of the study. The groups will then meet again
for a testing session after three nights. It is expected that the journaling group will do significantly better on the
recognition exam of the visual stimuli at the conclusion of the study. This study will establish the tool of dream
journaling as a method to assist in the consolidation of visual stimuli during sleep.
Title: “Hell’s Multiple Images from the Bible to Dante: Construction and Development”
Students: Sean Rimmer
Advisor: Dr. Jason Radine
For my research project I am focusing on the evolution of the concepts and images of Hell. Beginning with the
Hebrew texts and the image of the after life that is presented in the Hebrew Bible. Following through the texts of
the Bible I will examine the New Testament and the changes that occur in what Hell is thought to be. The third
section of my topic consists of probing non-canonical texts such as ―The Apocalypse of Peter‖ up to the 14th
century Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, focusing mainly on just the Inferno section. The purpose of these