Psychology research hero
Psychology experiments in the BabyLab
 

Research strands

 

Research and impact

Research Impact

Changing understanding and practice in anaesthesia
Led by Jackie Andrade this research focuses on developing strategies for the prevention and management of accidental awareness during general anaesthesia.

Led by Judy Edworthy this research focuses on reducing sensory overload on clinicians due to the excessive number of alarms

Led by Helen Lloyd this research focuses on developing models and approaches for people with multiple long-term conditions.

Latest publications

Some recent papers published by the School of Psychology

  • Yaakub SN, White TA, Roberts J, Martin E, Verhagen L, Stagg CJ, Hall S & Fouragnan EF 2023 'Transcranial focused ultrasound-mediated neurochemical and functional connectivity changes in deep cortical regions in humans' Nature Communications 14, (1) ,
  • Flaus A, Jung J, Ostrowky-Coste K, Rheims S, Guénot M, Bouvard S, Janier M, Yaakub SN, Lartizien C & Costes N 2023 'Deep‐learning predicted <scp>PET</scp> can be subtracted from the true clinical fluorodeoxyglucose <scp>PET</scp> co‐registered to <scp>MRI</scp> to identify the epileptogenic zone in focal epilepsy' Epilepsia Open ,
  • Floccia C, Ratnage P & Nazzi T 2023 'Vowels and Consonants Matter Equally to British English-Learning 11-Month-Olds’ Familiar Word Form Recognition' Journal of Child Language 1-24 ,
  • Steinbart D, Yaakub SN, Steinbrenner M, Guldin LS, Holtkamp M, Keller SS, Weber B, Rüber T, Heckemann RA & Ilyas-Feldmann M 2023 'Automatic and manual segmentation of the piriform cortex: Method development and validation in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease' Human Brain Mapping ,
  • Kappel S, Ramirez Montes De Oca MA, Collins S, Herborn K, Mendl M & Fureix C 2023 'Do you see what I see? Testing horses’ ability to recognise real-life objects from 2D computer projections' Animal Cognition ,
  • Wood K, Seabrooke T & Mitchell C 2023 'Action Slips in Food Choices: A Measure of Habits and Goal-Directed Control' Learning & Behavior ,
  • Richter I, Gabe-Thomas E, Queirós AM, Sheppard SRJ & Pahl S 2023 'Advancing the potential impact of future scenarios by integrating psychological principles' Environmental Science &amp; Policy 140, 68-79 ,
  • Yaakub SN, White TA, Kerfoot E, Verhagen L, Hammers A & Fouragnan EF 2023 'Pseudo-CTs from T1-weighted MRI for planning of low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound neuromodulation: An open-source tool' Brain Stimulation 16, (1) 75-78 ,
  • Samuel S, Salo S, Ladvelin T, Cole G & Eacott M 2022 'Teleporting into walls? The irrelevance of the physical world in embodied perspective taking' Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
  • Hollins T, Seabrooke T, Inkster A, Wills A & Mitchell C 2022 'Pre-testing Effects Are Target-Specific and Are Not Driven by a Generalised State of Curiosity' Memory ,
  • Samuel S 2022 'EXPRESS: A curse of knowledge or a curse of uncertainty? Bilingualism, embodiment, and egocentric bias' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ,
  • Ward R, Roderique-Davies G, Hughes H, Heirene R, Newstead S & John B 2022 'Alcohol‐related brain damage: A mixed‐method evaluation of an online awareness‐raising programme for frontline care and support practitioners' Drug and Alcohol Review 42, (1) 46-58 ,
  • Samuel S, Cole G & Eacott M 2022 'It’s not you, it’s me: A review of individual differences in visuo-spatial perspective taking' Perspectives on Psychological Science ,
  • Davies C, Brown SL, Fisher P, Hope-Stone L, Fisher D, Morgan A & Cherry MG 2022 'Predictors of emotional distress in uveal melanoma survivors: a systematic review' Eye ,
  • Golubickis M, Tan LBG, Saini S, Catterall K, Morozovaite A, Khasa S & Macrae CN 2022 'Knock yourself out: Brief mindfulness-based meditation eliminates self-prioritization' Psychonomic Bulletin &amp; Review ,
  • Svensson S, Golubickis M, Johnson S, Falbén JK & Macrae CN 2022 'Self-relevance and the activation of attentional networks' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 174702182211122-174702182211122 ,
  • Newstead S, Lewis J, Roderique-Davies G, Heirene RM & John B 2022 'The Paradox of the Frontal Lobe Paradox. A Scoping Review' Frontiers in Psychiatry 13, ,
  • Golubickis M & Macrae CN 2022 'Sticky me: Self-relevance slows reinforcement learning' Cognition 227, ,
  • Louderback ER, Gainsbury SM, Heirene RM, Amichia K, Grossman A, Bernhard BJ & LaPlante DA 2022 'Open Science Practices in Gambling Research Publications (2016–2019): A Scoping Review' Journal of Gambling Studies 39, (2) 987-1011 ,
  • Heirene RM, Wang A & Gainsbury SM 2022 'Accuracy of self-reported gambling frequency and outcomes: Comparisons with account data' Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 36, (4) 333-346 ,
 

Open Science Strategy

This strategy commits the School of Psychology to three key open science goals by 2021. The first is preregistration of all research that will be published. The second is open access to all research publications. The third is open access to the raw data, stimuli, materials, and analysis pipelines of all published papers (except where so doing would cause insurmountable ethical or privacy issues). Four members of staff are signatories to the Peer Reviewers' Openness Initiative (Bach, Walsh, Whalley, Wills), which seeks to use peer review as a lever to improve open science practices. Wills is a Trustee of the Nurture Science Publishing Group, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of affordable open-access publication in the context of rigorous, reproducibility-focused peer review.

 

Facilities and labs

Brain Research & Imaging Centre

The Brain Research & Imaging Centre (BRIC), the most advanced multi-modal brain imaging facility in the South West, will provide the sea-change to enhance the quality of our research in human neuroscience.

With seven cutting-edge human research laboratories, BRIC will include an MRI suite with the most advanced 3-Tesla scanner in the region. It will critically advance our enquiry toward the most advanced brain research, improved radiological diagnostics and better patient care.

Find out more about the facility

BRIC building development, December 2020

Neuroscience facilities

Located on our main city-centre campus, these facilities are ideally placed for large-sample studies of neurotypical individuals. The facilities comprise three eye-tracking labs, three 128-channel EEG labs (one suitable for infant participants), a Neural Modulation laboratory, a functional Near Infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) lab, and a data analysis suite. The Neural Modulation laboratory provides facilities for singlepulse and rapid TMS, and tDCS, combined with 64-channel EEG recording and 3D scalp surface and electrode digitisation.

Babylab

The Babylab provides facilities that are essential to the developmental component of our Experimental Psychology research. Babylab provides excellent, dedicated facilities for infant testing including a family-friendly reception space, two observation rooms, and six individual sound-attenuating booths, with a Tobii 300 Hz system and a head-turn preference setting.

Dedicated behavioural testing facilities

A total of 26 purpose-built testing rooms, most of them multi-seat. This facility supports much of the core work of Experimental Psychology group. There are also two dedicated 'soft labs': comfortable, relaxing spaces more conducive to the study of human interaction and counselling than standard labs. We also have three research-dedicated state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Labs.

Specialist equipment

Multichannel EMG systems, respiratory belts, skin thermometers, GSR devices, and pulse meters. There are also movement-measurement devices, including force transducers, accelerometers and laser displacement meters, and somatosensory and pain research devices that enable peripheral percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.

Non-human animal research

In the School of Biological and Marine Sciences there are eight dedicated observation labs, including two specialist temperature-controlled facilities suitable for aquatic animals. All labs are set up for video recording and remote logging with Noldus observer. Our Animal Behaviour researchers also make regular use of shared resources in the School of Biological and Marine Sciences, including animal housing, Home Office licensed space, plus physiology and molecular biology labs. Our research on sustainability is substantially facilitated by the presence of the 91porn Marine Institute - the first and largest such institute in the UK.

Virtual reality research

Our team are conducting research into virtual reality, working on topics including:

  • Foundations of search and navigation
  • Connecting people with the ocean
  • Using augmented reality to deliver an imagery-based intervention for behaviour change

Discover more about our latest virtual reality research.

EEG Lab
NeMo Lab / TMS
Softlab
 

Our researchers

 

Research collaborators