:: THE DAILY O'COLLEGIAN

Publication Date : February 26, 2007

New lab looks to improve couple, family relationships

Jeff Tarrant
Contributing Writer

Research in couple and family relationships is expected to garner national attention when a $241,000 coding lab in the department of human development and family sciences officially opens.

Assistant professor Brandt Gardner and HDFS Internship Coordinator Kelly Roberts supervise the lab, which is in the preliminary stages of opening. The lab will provide premium research for graduate students, use human development and family sciences undergraduate students, recruit distinguished faculty, and look to Stillwater for couples and families, Gardner said.

More than words or actions within a relationship will be researched in the lab.

The lab uses physiological data like heart rate, perspiration and respiration because emotions and behaviors are “messy data,” Gardner said.

“Relationships don’t come with a manual,” he said. “We hope [the lab] provides information that allows people to pursue relationships in a healthy way.”

Roberts and Gardner’s first topic of research involves a $500,000 federally funded project to study recruitment challenges in low-income couples populations

Gardner, a specialist in marital and couple research, said they will recruit the Stillwater community and surrounding areas for couples to participate in the study.

Roberts said the first research project will focus on low-income African-American and Latino couples, 18 to 35, with a control group of middle-income couples.  Recruitment is an important aspect of all human services projects Roberts added.  “If you build it and they don’t come, then there are no outcomes.”

Couples fill out initial questionnaires and engage in specific tasks, typically 15 minutes long, monitored with cameras and physiological machines, Gardner said.

With this technology, assessing negative behaviors, emotions and facial expressions help decipher unhealthy relationships, he said.

In 2004, the state of Oklahoma had the sixth highest divorce rate in the U.S., according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Gardner said despite preconceived notions that the current divorce rate in the U.S. continues to climb, the rate actually peaked in the early 1980s.

The lab concept was conceived in 2003 when HES Dean Patricia Knaub and Department Head Kathleen Briggs gained continued support that turned the concept into reality.

The project, now three years in the making, is complete because of money from HES, the human development and family sciences department and the vice president for research.

Christine Johnson, associate dean, said HES provided $130,500, and the vice president for research supplied more than $92,000.

“When the software company came on-site to train our faculty, they remarked that it was the nicest facility they had seen in the country,” Johnson said.

The lab includes rooms for both subjects and researchers.

Monitoring rooms are equipped with cameras to evaluate facial expressions, equipment to observe physiological data and two-way mirrors.

Roberts said the research rooms include the most advanced technology available to help code human behavior.

“Everyone is interested in relationships,” Gardner said. “[The lab] allows us to study, like never before at OSU, how those relationships work and how we can make them work better.”

Roberts said several universities, including Harvard University and the University of Seattle, have similar facilities, but OSU’s research and partnership with the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, a leader with the Administration for Children and Families Healthy Marriage programming, separates it from the nation.

“Oklahoma has the most well-respected, cutting-edge healthy marriage initiative program in the United States,” Roberts said. “When we go to a conference on marriage, we’re treated like rock stars,” Roberts said.


Gardner and Roberts said they are learning the logistics of the equipment first so they can measure their data correctly.

After gaining permission from the Institutional Review Board, Gardner said he expects by March to bring people in for pilot testing.

A possible need exists for couples from the Stillwater community and compensation as high as $100 is provided to those involved, Gardner said.

Those interested in participating can e-mail Gardner at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 744-5061.

Gardner said confidentiality will be kept.