{"id":3127,"date":"2018-04-10T13:55:22","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T13:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=3127"},"modified":"2018-04-10T14:11:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T14:11:53","slug":"gunthers-research-not-so-black-and-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2018\/04\/10\/gunthers-research-not-so-black-and-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunther’s Research Not So Black-and-White"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associate Professor of and Chair of Psychology Karen Gunther wanted to be an artist when she grew up.<\/p>\n

In junior high, she decided she was better suited for science or math, but she never let her creative side wane. After knitting and sewing with both of her grandmothers almost her entire life, Gunther picked up quilting while studying biopsychology at Oberlin College.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Associate Professor of Psychology Karen Gunther<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI wanted to somehow combine quilting with science,\u201d Gunther said, \u201cso I ended up studying color vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunther says it\u2019s fun \u201cimmersing\u201d herself in color, and her passion for her work even extends to her personal life.<\/p>\n

The wedding rings for her and her husband, who is also a vision scientist, were designed based on their field of study. Coral, chrysoprase, and lapis stones were used to symbolize the three cones found in the retina \u2013 red, green, and blue, respectively. Onyx lines are on the sides of their rings, which are similar to the stimuli the couple uses in their research.<\/p>\n

After recently receiving a grant<\/a> worth more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation, Gunther\u2019s research is about to expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cVision scientists have recently determined that the retina routes the cone signals into three \u2018cardinal color\u2019 pathways: red vs. green, bluish vs. yellowish and black vs. white,\u201d Gunter explained. \u201cBut how do people perceive colors beyond the six cardinal colors \u2013 the \u2018non-cardinal\u2019 colors?\u201d<\/p>\n

The grant will fund three years of research, as well as summer interns for Gunther, but it was a long process to get to this point.<\/p>\n

Gunther applied for the grant in August 2017. In early December, she received an email from the NSF that she had not uploaded a title slide for her grant.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The couple’s wedding rings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis meant they were going to discuss my grant and put the slide up during the discussion,\u201d Gunther said. \u201cThis was great news because my last NSF submission was rejected before discussion\u00a0and they liked my grant enough to let me still submit the title slide!\u201d<\/p>\n

And though the waiting period was long, Gunther said she never stressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the primary expectation of Wabash faculty is to teach, with secondary emphasis on research, my job wasn\u2019t relying on the grant as it would have been at more research-intensive schools. Some researchers at other schools are on \u201csoft\u201d money, which means they need to get grants to get their salaries. I wanted the grant, it would be satisfying, it would fund more summer interns, but I wouldn\u2019t lose my job without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Associate Professor of and Chair of Psychology Karen Gunther wanted to be an artist when she grew up. In junior high, she decided she was better suited for science or math, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/04\/1-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3138,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions\/3138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}