coMPARE Lab

Information: coMPARE Lab

Sitting in a recliner, watching TV, and being part of a growing team. What do these three things all have in common? They're all part of the coMPARE Lab at the University of South Dakota. 

This lab is truly a unique addition to the school and has made Vermillion the home of media research in the state. 

So what is the coMPARE Lab exactly? Well for starters, it's actually an acronym. It stands for Communication Media Psychology and Related Effects. The lab is a psycho-physiology lab that does many lab reports on the brain and why it remembers certain details within the realm of the media. 

The idea to bring this to the University of South Dakota started a ways back, four years to be exact, by Professor Brandon Nutting. Nutting had worked with two other labs of this nature during his college years at the Ohio State University and Texas Tech. Remarkably, those were just two of the eight schools in the nation that had this media-driven lab. With a vision (and funding), Vermillion, S.D. became the home of the ninth psycho-physiology lab.

Since it is only in its second year of existence, it's still continuing the process of growing each and every day. 

Located in the basement of the Al Neuharth Building, this unique set-up features computers, charts, a TV and of course, a recliner. An example of something you might experience in the coMPARE Lab is sitting on the recliner while watching a TV show. You have equipment connected to you, trying to see how your brain is processing. After, you answer some questions and discuss elements that caught your attention. 

So what's the big deal of all of this?

"It gives us real, hard answers," Nutting said. 

Nutting says the lab is in a good position right now, but they are working hard to partner with advertising agencies.

"Being that we're the leader in media research for the entire state, we're looking to expand in many ways," Nutting said. "We want to build money for the school.

It may be a lab without much tradition, but given the good start, it shouldn't take a whole lot of time for the ball to really start rolling.