Linfield’s Eureka Foong ’14 put her liberal arts education to good effect last spring, and it netted her a $6,000 scholarship. Foong won the top prize in the 2014 Noba Student Video Award for her three-minute animated video about the misinformation effect. Her major in psychology and minor in media studies were instrumental to her win.
“The Noba Student Video Award was the perfect opportunity for me to combine both my interests in communication and psychology,” Foong said. “While I was at Linfield, I minored in media studies. I took a class on video production from the mass communication department with Dr. Michael Huntsberger my first semester and have volunteered for McMinnville Community Media filming some of the football games on campus.”
The Noba contest asked students to create a three-minute video related to a topic on memory in one of Noba’s online textbooks. Click here to check out her winning entry.
“I knew a little about the misinformation effect from previous psychology courses and thought it was one of the most interesting phenomena from the chapters. The misinformation effect is when our memory for an event is altered due to misinformation,” Foong said. “I tied the misinformation effect to eyewitness misidentification, a topic I had researched for a class in the mass communication department last year.”
Foong beat out nearly 80 entries from around the world. The win surprised her. She credits her approach for helping her stand out. Her video uses the example of taking photos of food to help explain the misinformation effect.
“I’m truly honored and still in disbelief that I was awarded top prize,” she said.
Foong is continuing to use both her degrees this summer, interning in the public affairs office at the American Psychological Association in Washington D.C. She is also applying for jobs in the Washington D.C. area and considering a position at a Portland firm that develops software to assess attention deficit. Eventually, she plans to return to school and pursue a graduate degree either in media studies or psychology.
