Research Themes

1. Attention and Inhibition

A number of brain processes are involved in determining our behaviour over the short term as we interact with the environment. These processes are underpinned by the mechanisms that control our attention. Our research is directed at how individuals are able to control their awareness of, and readiness to respond to, particular categories of stimuli. One focus is the basic mechanisms of orienting and startle responses in humans and non-humans, which govern how we respond to novel stimuli. A closely related issue is the role of inhibitory processes, which allow us to ignore irrelevant stimuli (distractors). There are a number of projects in place, for example:

• inhibition problems in heavy social drinkers; distraction processes in pain; indicators of feigned cognitive dysfunction in cases of malingering.
  
• normal attentional and inhibitory processes in adults and children, including reading processes.
  
• atypical populations such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia and anxiety disorder.
  
• basic research into the nature and determinants of event related brain potentials.

 

2. Perception and Memory

How do we sense and interact with our environment? A major focus of our research is the interaction between perception and memory - the way in which previous experience, stored in memory, alters how we perceive or interact with the environment in future. This is influential in determining the way we discriminate and categorise visual and auditory stimuli to deal with them most effectively. These processes allow us to simplify the way we respond to the environment in order to make the sensory world more manageable. Projects investigating this link include:

• learning without awareness.
  
• relationship between long-term memory and verbal short-term memory.
  
• biological and environmental influences on how concepts are grouped or categorized.
  
• interactions between visual and spatial processing.
  
• biological and environmental influences on reasoning and problem solving.




3. Cognitive and Affective Processing

Why do people think and respond differently from one another? We measure behavioural differences using cognitive and psychophysiological indices to better understand behaviours that have a direct effect on quality of life. We study how:

• psychophysiological processes and personality interact in predicting individuals' levels of prejudice, and responses to violent video.
  
• cognitive performance is affected by extreme environments.