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Name: _____________________________ Period: _______ Date: __________________

Research Project Completion Form


TOPIC: Social Interaction after a Brain Injury
______________________________________________
1. What was your hypothesis?
-I predict that your social interaction is affected after a brain injury.
2. What method of research design did you choose and why?
-Observation, because I know several people who have a brain injury. Mainly research
because you can never know enough about brain injuries.
3. How did you define the ambiguous (unclear) aspects of your topic?
-Social interaction after a brain injury involves anything from talking to someone or
showing emotion. Due to brain damage, many of them have anger issues or can't get out
thoughts clearly or fluently. Brain injury survivors are often forgetful and get distracted.
After a brain injury it becomes much harder to focus on one thing or do a lot of things.
Your brain get's tired a lot easier and can only handle so much. Some survivors require a
lot of sleep due to fatigue from overworking their brain. This is the short description of
how social interaction is affected after a brain injury.

4. What variables do you expect to impact your project?


-How severe the brain injury is and what part of the brain was damaged/affected
5. How do you plan on addressing those variables?
-Researching and asking my friends about their brain damage
6. Data Collection:
How did you collect your data?
-Research and observation

Who did your project target?


-Ever since Ive met my friends who have brain injuries, I have always been interested in
spreading awareness and working in the foundation. One of the brain injury survivors I
know has a foundation who helps support people who have a traumatic brain injury.
Since this is now apart of my personal life I decided to target my project towards those
who have a brain injury.

Did it matter who you targeted? Why or why not?


-Yes, because life after a brain injury is completely different from how you were before
(or so I have read and heard about). So a lot of people dont know about the continuous
struggles these people go through everyday, because a brain injury is a disability you
cannot see. So if a person without a brain injury were to see this project, they would
know the difference because they dont have a brain injury. Whereas if I were to target
people without brain injuries and how they are in social interaction my data would have
not been clear.

7. Data Analysis:
How did you analyze your data?
-I analyzed my data through research and observation
What were you looking for? (mean, mode, frequency, correlation, etc.)
-Correlation, based on my answers
What were your results?
http://www.human-memory.net/brain_parts.html#
My research showed me that The cerebellum plays an important role in balance, motor
control, but is also involved in some cognitive functions such as attention, language,
emotional functions.
So if that part of the brain is damaged all of the things listed would have more of a
chance of being affected. Through a lot of cognitive and physical therapy, that can be
improved through time but a brain injury never fully heals.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5903/896.short

Social information alters gene expression in the brain to influence behavior, and genetic
variation influences brain function and social behavior.
Even this shows that just through your genetics and brain influence, that affects your
social behavior. So when the brain is damaged, everything that controls who you are, that
can majorly affect your personality and social behavior.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/WhoAmI/FindOutMore/Yourbrain/Whatareemotions/W
hichareaofyourbraincontrolsemotions.aspx
Emotions enable us to react to situations - for example, anger or fear will set your heart
racing, and feeling happy will make you smile. One of the key areas of your brain that
deals with showing, recognising and controlling the bodys reactions to emotions is
known as the limbic system.
So say if the limbic system is damaged from a brain injury emotions would be a key point
affected. For example, my friend told me she had that part of her brain damaged and
sometimes she experiences uncontrollable laughter, anger issues, and even depression.
Now some of these things also may happen for people without brain injuries but it is
completely different. Like with the uncontrollable laughter, they might not even find what
was said or heard funny, but since that part of their brain is damaged it can happen at
very unexpected times.

Did your results prove or disprove your hypothesis? How do you know?
-It proves my hypothesis because everything that is involved in social interaction,
whether it is reactions, emotions, or physical representation, after a brain injury all of
those things are affected.

6. Reflection:
What was the most difficult thing about this project?
-Trying to describe a brain injury without actually having one. No matter how much
research I do, I can never fully understand a brain injury unless I have one.

If you could ask a different question or questions to improve your results what would it
be?
-I would ask how did you feel when you noticed you werent the same as you were before
the injury.

Is your view of the topic different now? Why or why not?


-My perspective is still the same on the topic. I think that a brain injury does change you
as a person and it will never go away. You never fully heal after a brain injury and you do
have to learn how to do things differently. You have to go at a different pace than you
were able to do before. A brain injury does affect you as a person and definitely affects
your social interaction skills.

If you could do the entire project over again, what would you do differently?
-I would ask more questions to my friends about their brain injuries. I didnt do that now
because I do not have contact with them at the moment.
7. Documents:
Please attach a copy of your survey, interview questions, and explanation of your
observation or experiment. (whatever you did to collect your data)
Please attach a copy of the pieces of literature you found that related to your topic of
study (shoot for at least 3)
-By hanging out with my friends who have brain injuries I just observed what was
different from my other friends who do not have brain injuries. Such as their social skills
by talking, their change of mood, and their body language.
Links to the research I did on brain injuries:
http://www.human-memory.net/brain_parts.html#
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5903/896.short
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/WhoAmI/FindOutMore/Yourbrain/Whatareemotions/W
hichareaofyourbraincontrolsemotions.aspx

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