Stanford University's Social Neuroscience Lab conducts psychological research focused on well-being, social connection, and empathy. The lab runs structured experiments where participants engage with video-based storytelling content and provide measurable responses — generating data that advances understanding of human emotional processing.
To scale their research capabilities and reach a broader participant pool, the lab needed a purpose-built digital platform that could handle the full experiment lifecycle — from participant onboarding to data collection and export.
The lab needed a custom website purpose-built for running psychological experiments. Participants would watch videos of storytellers, be recorded while watching, and then rate how they believed the storyteller felt. The platform had to handle the full complexity of academic research requirements.
Key technical requirements included:
Active Logic built the full experiment platform with every required capability — video recording, upload/download, demographic surveys, timer-based longitudinal research tools, email integration, participant randomization, login prevention, and organized data export. Nathan served as the primary contact and project manager throughout the engagement.
Built a complete video recording and playback system that captured participant reactions in real time, with reliable upload and download functionality for research analysis.
Implemented demographic surveys with built-in randomization, ensuring academic rigor. Organized data download capabilities allowed researchers to efficiently analyze results across participant cohorts.
Developed timer-based mechanisms for extended studies, integrated email workflows for participant engagement, and implemented login prevention to maintain data integrity across sessions.
The platform was successfully used to run the experiment several times, collecting data from nearly 1,000 participants. The engagement spanned from January 2020 through March 2023, providing Stanford's Social Neuroscience Lab with a reliable, scalable tool for conducting complex psychological research at scale.
Sydney Garcia Research Coordinator, Stanford University"It was a pleasure working with Nathan and his team. They were very responsive. Nathan, in particular, did a fantastic job communicating with our team, implementing timely fixes for issues."
Talk to us about how Active Logic can build purpose-built software for complex workflows and data-intensive applications.
