School of Psychology

The research in the eye-tracking laboratory is focused on inferential process in vision, social attention and cognition, which investigates how visual cognition is shaped and influenced by our environment, experience and knowledge. We are currently examining how we move the eyes to select and look at salient visual cues around us to understand our surroundings, how these cues are processed in the brain and further used to guide our behaviour in the tasks such as face recognition, emotion recognition, body perception, and scene understanding.

Electroencephalogram studies are well used in psychology to ascertain activation patterns in the brain in response to stimuli to see when and where parts of the brain are responding. Studies in the past and currently have centred around visual discomfort, noise, investigating spatial frequency perception, migraines, visual response to visual illusions and natural images, as well as perception of motion and body language. EEG allows electrodes to be placed onto the scalp using a conductive gel and a cap to position the electrodes with. The School has recently acquired a new ActiveTwo BioSemi system and also houses a second BioSemi system. There are EEG sets available for younger children as well for studies involving younger participants.

Works in conjunction with the Molecular lab but this lab has a full size phlebotomy chair for the drawing of blood for analyses, as well as housing the CANTAB laptop which houses a gold standard test battery for executive function tests such as those involving memory. This lab also has a BioPac MP150 and an EDA (Electro Dermal Activity/GSR(Galvanic Skin Response)/PPG(photoplethysmogram) module for looking at physiological markers during executive function tasks for monitoring participant's physical and emotional arousal state.

The Molecular lab is currently carrying out and has carried out in the past studies revolving around cortisol that was measured alongside other behavioural and demographic measures and works in conjunction with the Phlebotomy/CANTAB lab to test executive function alongside biological markers such as cortisol. Part of new PhD student research is looking at blood analysis in diabetic patients as well as having worked on DNA analysis in previous studies. The Molecular lab houses a contained wet lab for chemical and biological analyses on site and stores samples from participants before, during and after processing and analyses.

This lab looks at biomechanical motion and perceptions of motion. It houses two MIRAGE systems which allow visual manipulation of participants limb's (such as displacing or stretching hands) to see the effect on motion and performance. There are also feedback tools to guide the participant as well as investigating limb embodiment and phantom limbs - the lab has a number of prosthetic hands for use in research investigating this. The lab also has glasses which can cover a single eye during movement tasks.

The Lincoln Infant and Child Development Lab opened in 2000 and research has been concentrating on different areas of categorisation and conceptual development as well as speech perception and language acquisition, especially word learning and early grammar. Other research focuses on injury prevention - especially on the prevention of dog bite injuries. Here, we assessed the Blue Dog bite prevention programme, www.thebluedog.org and we have carried out further research projects on children's misinterpretation of dogs' facial expressions, on why children get bitten in the face, head and neck area more often. We have also undertaken eye-tracking studies of children looking at dog faces and past and ongoing research also investigates children's and adults' perception of dog signalling and an assessment of the effectiveness of bite prevention in the home with a familiar dog.

This lab looks at studies of motion, colour and colour constancy perception as well as reactions to visual stimuli. The lab houses a set of high refresh rate monitors and participants will look at a range of videos and image stimuli while making responses about their own perception in relation to the stimuli. Studies looking at specific visual illusions, especially around colour have also been of interest.

This lab houses a driving simulator set up with a widescreen monitor and a fully integrated simulated driving seat with adjustable and movable parameters. There are a range of driving simulators used in software but are adaptable to necessary tasks. Current studies involve looking at a range of participants including those who are rated higher on the autistic spectrum, and analysing eyetracking, physiological and behavioural data such as driving performance on standardised tasks as well as head tracking and object recognition.