Jennica Rogers, M.A.

She/her

Education: Bachelor of Science in psychology (May 2018)

Master of Arts in social ecology from the University of California, Irvine

Currently pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in developmental psychology at the University of California, Irvine

McNair Project: Memory Recall for Television Episodes Interrupted by Commercials Containing an Emotional Component (2017)

Mentor: Heather Bailey, Ph.D.

Boltz (1992) found memory recall for a television show was higher if commercial breaks were placed at breakpoint boundaries (a shift between two specific events) rather than non-breakpoint boundaries (take place in the middle of events). Three experiments were designed to see if her results could be replicated and extended to see whether or not interrupting the show with emotional commercials had different effects on memory. Experiment 1 determined whether or not the event boundaries Boltz’ (1992) participants found were accurate by using event segmentation measures with a higher number of participants. Experiment 2 used an emotional intensity rating scale to assess how emotionally intense commercials were to identify which ones should be used in Experiment 3. Experiment 1 showed variability in event boundary locations compared to Boltz’ (1992) event boundary locations. Experiment 3 will be conducted by using the results from experiment 1 and 2.