School of Psychology
Choosing Empirical Projects
2012-2013
For students taking any BSc degree in Psychology
who will start their final year in October 2012
FACULTY RESEARCH GROUPS/ RESEARCH AREAS
Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience
The behavioural and clinical neuroscience research group at Sussex University has
interests in:
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the application of basic neuroscience and behavioural techniques in rodents to
study the neural bases of drug addiction, learning and memory
the application of human psychopharmacology techniques to explore the
detailed effects of drugs on human behaviour and cognition, as well as both
preclinical and clinical investigations of the cognitive and other psychological
deficits associated with long-term use of drugs such as ecstasy and alcohol
the neurobiology of motivated behaviours, with specialist interests in the
control of ingestion in rodents and humans
the cognitive neuroscience of human memory and attention, and especially
research on changes associated with healthy and unhealthy cognitive ageing,
genetic risk factors and deficits associated with neurodegenerative diseases
such as Alzheimer‟s and Parkinson‟s
There is a close inter-relationship between animal, human and clinical work in each
of these areas, and an emphasis on translational research. On both the human and
animal side, the group has long-standing links with clinical health professionals both
locally and nationally. The human work benefits from the developing strength of
cognitive neuroscience at the University, including links with the Sackler Centre for
Consciousness and the Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, both based on the Sussex
Campus. On the animal side, the Sussex group is one of the strongest groups in any
UK university for the behavioural characterisation of transgenic mice, and enjoys
collaborative links with molecular neuroscientists in the School of Life Sciences and
with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. There is a dedicated unit for the
laboratory study of rodents, and a human psychopharmacology laboratory, including
facilities for the study of eating behaviour, and alcohol and drug use, and cognitive
enhancing agents. Local facilities include a bedded unit should participants need to
stay overnight.
School Of Psychology
Choosing Empirical Projects 2012-2013
Cognitive Psychology
The Cognitive Psychology group has interests in:
 learning and memory, especially implicit learning (including computational
simulations of learning), awareness of knowledge states, memory and
consciousness across the lifespan, including measures of consciousness in
brain-injured patients and memory processes as illuminated by comparisons
between normal and brain-damaged adults.
 language and communication, especially the behavioural, cognitive and
neuropsychological processes involved in language comprehension and
production. Our speciality fields include psycholinguistics, specifically, pronoun
interpretation, text comprehension and children's difficulties in text
comprehension and children's categorisation and vocabulary learning.
 vision, especially visual cognition and attention, face processing, perception
and action, low-level vision and computational neuroscience.
 animal vocal communication and cognition, where we have particular
expertise in using playback experiments to tackle questions about
communication and cognitive abilities in large terrestrial mammals (deer, dogs,
elephants, horses) and non-passerine birds (gulls and owls).
We have expertise in the use of specialised technology including acoustic playback,
speech analysis, eye tracking, EEG/ERPs, transcortical magnetic stimulation and
brain imaging.
Developmental and Clinical Psychology
The Developmental and Clinical Psychology research group has a common aim of
advancing theoretical approaches to human development and to clinical psychology
generally, and informing practical intervention to support cognitive, emotional and
social growth. Research spans three closely-related areas:
Social development, family and peer relations A key theme is the development of
social understanding and theory of mind in relation to aspects of family and peer
interactions. This includes work on postnatal psychological wellbeing, the role of peer
relations, behavioural-genetic models of development and the importance of family
and school environment for children's adjustment.
Development, cognition and communication This covers research into cognitive
development, including word learning and categorisation, perceptual development
and colour categorisation, as well as on the evolution and development of
communication, investigating gestural communication in primates and the
development of social play and social interaction in typical and atypical development,
e.g. autism.
Emotional adjustment
factors that determine
transmission of anxiety
worrying in adulthood,
therapies.
across the lifespan This includes investigation of causal
fear acquisition in children and the intergenerational
from parent to child, models of mood and pathological
studies of psychosis, and computer-aided psychological
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The Developmental and Clinical Psychology laboratory suite has extensive video
recording and editing facilities, eye-tracking and habituation facilities and other
testing rooms.
Social and Applied Psychology
The Social & Applied Psychology Group is one of the largest groups of social and
applied social psychologists in the UK. It focuses its research activity around five
major research themes:
Behaviour change: intervention, design and evaluation
Behaviour change is critical to affordable health services and sustainable energy use.
Members of the group have developed new approaches to understanding the
application of behaviour change techniques and applied these to health-related
behaviours. The use of self-affirmation techniques to promote positive behaviour
change is a particular strength of the group. Research in this area also includes
transport mode choice, eating behaviour and exercise behaviour (Links: Richard De
Visser, Peter Harris, Paul Sparks, Donna Jessop, Helga Dittmar).
Health Psychology
Members of the group are chartered health psychologists (Links: Paul Sparks) and
research focuses on understanding the prevalence and determinants of healthrelated behaviours. These include alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, eating,
sexual behaviour and blood donation (Links: Richard De Visser, Peter Harris, Paul
Sparks, Donna Jessop).
Identity, Culture and Well-being
Three broad strands of research are concerned with the interplay of cultural values,
personal and social identity and well-being. There is a long-standing tradition of
cross-cultural research in the group, reflected in current projects investigating how
personal and social identities may be constructed differently in individualist and
collectivist societies (Links: Viv Vignoles, Rupert Brown) and how materialistic values
(differently evident in different societies) are related to well-being (Links: Helga
Dittmar, Rod Bond). A second line of work in this strand is concerned with how
culturally transmitted images of „ideal‟ body shapes and sizes impact on young
people‟s well-being and dissatisfaction with their own bodies and their eating
behaviour (Links: Helga Dittmar, Rod Bond, Viv Vignoles). A third area of work
concerns the role of identity processes in various contexts such as: in consumer
behaviour, especially impulse buying and on-line shopping; in linking gender and
health-related behaviour; and within and between teams. Finally, the role of social
network sites and other forms of virtual relationships in identity formation is of interest
(Links: Helga Dittmar, Karen Long).
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Intergroup Relations, Group Processes and Collective Behaviour
There are three broad research areas under this heading. One is concerned with how
individuals are affected by participation in crowd events (e.g., riots, social
movements, mass emergencies and celebration crowds) (Links: John Drury). Here
the concern is to understand how collective participation and identification can
transform self and behaviour. The second line of work focuses on the origins of
intergroup prejudice and effective means of reducing it (Links: Rupert Brown). Also
studied are the role of emotion in intergroup settings, especially what part collective
guilt and shame can play in generating more favourable intergroup attitudes, and
reconciliation in post-conflict societies (Links: Rupert Brown, Viv Vignoles). A third
strand examines how group and identity processes can affect people‟s persistence
and performance at various group-related tasks (Links: Rupert Brown, John Drury,
Karen Long).
Pro-social and Moral Engagement
Here the focus is on prosocial motivation, prosocial behaviour and on the factors
which lead people to take actions that impact positively on the well-being of others.
For example, factors affecting donating (e.g., blood, organs), volunteering,
citizenship, attitudes towards pro-environmental actions, activism and engagement in
pro-community actions. Themes that permeate this research are concern for the
welfare of others (at individual, community and global levels) and the boundary
conditions for the translation of prosocial motives into positive action. (Links: Tom
Farsides, Paul Sparks, Donna Jessop).
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RESEARCH SUPERVISORS
NOTE THAT IN ADDITION TO THE SUPERVISORS LISTED ON THE FOLLOWING
PAGES WE EXPECT TO HAVE NEWLY APPOINTED LECTURERS JOINING US
LATER THIS YEAR WHO MAY BE AVAILABLE TO SUPERVISE PROJECTS. YOU
MAY BE ALLOCATED ONE OF THESE SUPERVISORS IF THEIR RESEARCH
INTERESTS ARE APPROPRIATE.
SUSAN AYERS (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
I work in clinical health psychology and supervise research on stress and coping and
mental health, such as anxiety, depression and PTSD. A lot of my work is in
women's health, particularly childbirth, but I am willing to supervise projects in any
relevant area of clinical health psychology. Examples of recent projects students
have carried out include looking at social support and health, postnatal mental health,
memories of traumatic birth, needle-phobia in children with cystic fibrosis, evaluation
of midwife-debriefing and internet self-help for parents.
ROBIN BANERJEE (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
I will supervise projects on children's socio-cognitive and socio-emotional
development, with particular attention to social understanding, emotional adjustment,
and peer relations. Some student projects may involve working on ongoing studies,
but all students are expected to be involved in collecting data in primary or secondary
schools. Students may cover topics such as peer acceptance and rejection, peer
reputation, aggression and bullying, social anxiety and loneliness, friendship quality,
emotional self-regulation, self-presentation, and social understanding.
Information on current and recent research in Robin's lab can be found at:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/cress
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CHRIS BIRD - COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Background:
My research aims to understand how we are able to remember events and episodes.
I investigate memory in healthy adults; both in terms of how memories are laid down
and subsequently retrieved and also the brain regions necessary to do this. I am
particularly interested in how we combine elements of a memory into the whole
“package”, such as where an event took place and what happened there in which
order. I also look at how memory processes break down in neurological conditions
such as Alzheimer‟s disease, epilepsy and stroke. I use a mixture of classic
behavioural paradigms (e.g. recognition memory paradigms using words and pictures
as memoranda) and novel ways of assessing memory for more naturalistic materials
(desktop virtual reality and video clips).
Potential projects:
How do memories change over time?
a) Does actively recalling a memory make it more durable than simply encoding it
again?
b) How does recalling a memory change its character?
c) Over time, do people only recall the gist of a memory but forget the details, and
what is the time course for this?
d) Do people create “false memories” for things that they think have happened but do
not actually see? Under what conditions does this occur?
I am also happy to consider other projects concerned with how we represent spatial
contextual information and how we recognise people and places we have seen
before.
RUPERT BROWN (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
My interests are broadly in group processes and intergroup relations and students
wishing to do projects with me may find it helpful to take my final year option, The
Social Psychology of Prejudice. I am pursuing five related strands of research:
1. Prejudice reduction through intergroup contact. More generally, I am interested in
discovering factors which promote more favourable intergroup attitudes in a variety of
contexts (e.g. national, interethnic, host society and immigrant, indigenous and nonindigenous).
2. Intergroup emotions and especially the role that guilt and shame play in
determining people's response to outgroup members, especially in intergroup
situations where one group may have perpetrated offences against another. The
roles that Individual versus Group self-affirmations can play in promoting or inhibiting
feelings of guilt and shame. Also of interest, the role of emotions in forgiveness and
post-conflict reconciliation.
3. Acculturation processes, especially in ethnic minority-majority contexts. The role of
acculturation processes in predicting psychosocial (e.g., well-being) and social (e.g.,
prejudice) outcomes.
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4. Resilience. How does identification with a single or many social groups facilitate
(or inhibit) people‟s persistence on difficult tasks or resistance to noxious
stimuli/events?
5. Victims of hate crime: how do members of victimized groups respond to the
knowledge that others in their group have been singled out for abuse (or worse)?
6. Evaluation of social interventions: I am interested in developing and evaluating
interventions for changing people‟s social attitudes (e.g., towards people with mental
health problems).
Some relevant reading:
Brown, R. (2010) Prejudice: its social psychology, 2nd edition. NY: Wiley-Blackwell
HANS CROMBAG & TAMZIN RIPLEY (BEHAVIOURAL & CLINICAL
NEUROSCIENCE)
We are very pleased to be able to offer joint supervision research projects that will
allow small groups of students to work together on integrated projects allowing for a
greater depth of research. Jointly we will be offering projects on behavioural and
molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity, the neuronal mechanism
underlying learning and memory systems. As a research team, we are particularly
interested in how drugs of abuse affect these systems leading to loss of control and
drug addiction.
As these projects involve either working directly with animal models or with tissue
samples from animals, there are certain procedures that need to be considered.
Firstly, many procedures must be performed by, or in the presence of, a qualified
person. Therefore you must be able and willing to fit in your timing with the needs of
the people who are helping you. Secondly, you will have at least some responsibility
for the care of the animals, and therefore will need to make a regular commitment to
the welfare of your animals. Third, you will be working in a laboratory environment.
One requirement is that you MUST NOT work alone. For this reason project students
will be expected to adopt an informal "buddy" arrangement between themselves,
which ensures that at least two people are in the lab at any one time.
Hans Crombag: The primary focus of my research is the psychological and
neurobiological mechanisms of motivated behaviour and how addictive drugs usurp
these mechanisms. Typical studies involve using rats, or genetically altered mice, to
study the involved of particular brain regions, neurotransmitter systems or molecular
targets in motivated behaviour and the effects of addictive drugs on brain and
behaviour. I can also supervise questionnaire-based studies on consumer choice and
corporate image.
Tamzin Ripley: I‟m interested in the way in which neuronal processes in the
adolescent brain adapt during learning and following periods of drug taking (e.g.
alcohol). I am particularly keen to explore the impact that social and environmental
conditions may have on these processes, and to compare these changes with
traditional (pharmacological) interventions. In my work I use rodent models so that
environmental conditions and drug exposure can be carefully controlled.
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GRAHAM DAVEY (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
I will be offering the opportunity for final year students to undertake a research
project in the following areas:
1.
The role of the mood-as-input hypothesis in perseverative psychopathologies –
including chronic worrying, compulsive checking and depressive rumination;
there may be an opportunity to extend this perseverative hypothesis to other
psychopathologies such as gambling; this hypothesis attempts to explain
perseveration at worrying, compulsive checking, depressive rumination and
addictive behaviour in terms of the way that an individual‟s mood acts as
information about whether to stop or not
Meeten F & Davey G C L (2011) Mood-as-input hypothesis and perseverative
psychopathologies. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 1259-1275.
Hawksley J & Davey G.C.L. (2010) Mood-as-input and depressive rumination.
Behaviour Research & Therapy, 48, 134-140.
MacDonald C.B. & Davey G.C.L. (2005) Inflated responsibility and perseverative
checking: The role of negative mood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 176-182.
Startup H.M. & Davey G.C.L. (2001) Mood-as-information and catastrophic worrying.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 83-96.
2.
The relationship between cognitive/clinical constructs associated with
psychopathology and the behavioural symptoms associated with the
psychopathology. The traditional view is that clinical constructs (e.g. inflated
responsibility, beliefs about worrying) cause relevant symptoms (e.g. compulsive
behaviour, pathological worrying), but there is evidence that these causal links
are bidirectional (i.e. being compulsive can also cause changes to beliefs about
inflated responsibility). This research area aims to look more closely to see if
behaviours related to psychopathology can influence cognitions.
(Email me if you have an interest in this topic and I will send you some unpublished
manuscripts)
3.
The role of embodied cognition in psychopathology experiences. This view
argues that psychopathology experiences (e.g. feeling anxious, depressed,
etc.) is an embodied re-experience of those emotions. This means that
psychopathology experiences (1) reflect the re-enactment of perceptual, motor
and bodily states acquired during the experience, and are predominantly
modal in nature, and (2) contain embodiments that have become established
in memory (e.g. activation of facial expressions associated with negative
mood, depression, anxiety when these emotions are experienced). For
example, this line of research suggests that if people are made to use facial
muscles associated with smiling, they will report being less anxious/frightened
of fear-relevant stimuli/events than if they are made to use the facial muscles
associated with fear.
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Niedenthal, P. M. (2007). Embodying emotion. Science, 316, 1002-1005.
Niedenthal, P. M., Winkielman, P., Mondillon, L., & Vermeulen, N. (2009).
Embodiment of emotion concepts. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 96,
1120-1136.
Larsen, J. T., Norris, C. J., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2003). Effects of positive and negative
affect on electromyographic activity over zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii.
Psychophysiology, 40(5), 776-785.
(Email me if you have an interest in this topic and I’ll send you some unpublished
manuscripts of relevant research)
4. The role of working memory capacity in psychopathology. There is some
evidence that individuals with low working memory capacity tend to be prone to
anxiety-based disorders, and that their low working memory capacity may
contribute to their difficulty in controlling anxiety when anxiety-provoking situations
are encountered. This area of research will be investigating the potential role of
working memory capacity in the experience and control of anxiety, and how this
relates to various anxiety-based symptoms (such as pathological worrying,
perseverative compulsions, safety behaviours, etc.)
Hayes S, Hirsch C & Mathews A (2008) Restriction of working memory capacity
during worry. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 712-717.
Barrett LF, Tugade MM & Engle RW (2004) Individual differences in working memory
capacity and dual-process theories of the mind. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 553-573.
RICHARD de VISSER (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I am available to supervise health psychology projects in three domains:
[1] sexual behaviour - e.g., condom use, use of health services, jealousy
[2] alcohol use - e.g., drinking cultures, responses to government guidelines
[3] gender and health. - e.g., health behaviour as an expression of
masculinity/femininity
I am particularly interested in supervising students wishing to use qualitative methods
(phenomenological, thematic, or discourse analysis). However, I am happy to
supervise quantitative projects in these areas.
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ZOLTAN DIENES (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
Projects undertaken with me will investigate unconscious processes, especially
implicit learning, the process by which people come to learn about the structure of
some domain without knowing what they have learned, or even that they have learnt
anything - 'unconscious learning'. I also supervise projects on hypnosis, looking at
how we can unconsciously intend actions - such projects could investigate the factors
that influence hypnotisability or what can be achieved with hypnotic suggestion.
Available from my website:
Dienes, Z., & Seth, A. (2010). The conscious and the unconscious. In G. F. Koob, M.
Le Moal, & R.F. Thompson (Eds), *Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience*,
volume 1, pp. 322–327. Oxford: Academic Press.
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Zoltan_Dienes/Dienes%20&%20Seth%202010
%20consciousness.pdf
Dienes, Z., & Perner, J. (2007).The cold control theory of hypnosis. In G. Jamieson
(Ed.), *Hypnosis and conscious states: The cognitive neuroscience perspective.*
Oxford University Press, pp 293-314.
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Zoltan_Dienes/cold%20control%20chapter.pdf
HELGA DITTMAR (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I have a long-standing research interest in sociocultural influences on body image
and eating behaviour, particularly media images. Consumer culture influences
include not only TV and magazines, but also music videos, toys/dolls, or computer
games. More detail on this and my other research interests is in my recent Research
Monograph Consumer Culture, Identity and Well-Being.
Previous experimental studies confirm consistently that ultra-thin models have a
detrimental effect on a sizeable proportion of women, who come to feel bad about
their bodies after exposure to advertisements containing such unrealistic models.
There is some recent research also on ideal male images increasing male body
dissatisfaction. Much less is known about the underlying psychological processes of
this negative impact, i.e., about moderators (who is affected? when?) and mediators
(what are the mechanisms through which people come to feel bad about their
bodies?). I am happy to supervise projects that examine factors that make individuals
more or less vulnerable to sociocultural pressures and body dissatisfaction.
Examples of previous student projects that were published:
Brown, A. & Dittmar, H. (2005). Think 'thin' and feel bad: The role of appearance
schema activation, attention level, and thin-ideal internalisation for young women's
responses to ultra-thin media ideals.
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 1088-1113.
Dittmar, H. & Blayney, M. (1996). Women's self-reported eating behaviours and their
responses to food and non-food television advertisements.
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Eating Disorders Review, 4, 217-231.
Dittmar, H. & Howard, S. (2004). Professional hazards? The impact of model's body
size on advertising effectiveness and women's body-focused anxiety in professions
that do and do not emphasize the cultural ideal of thinness.
British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 477-498.
Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E., & Ive, S. (2006). Does Barbie make girls want to be thin?
The effect of experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of 5-8year-old girls. Developmental Psychology, 42, 283-292.
JOHN DRURY (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise four types of research project:
1) Empowerment in collective action. Involvement in crowd events, protests and
social movements can give people a sense of empowerment. This can in turn affect
their subjective wellbeing. A project investigating this could involve interviews,
questionnaires, participant observation or experimental simulation. Previous student
projects have included studies of student protests and Occupy London direct actions.
2) Crowding and personal space. Experimental studies can be carried out to
examine how and why the sensations associated with objectively similar conditions of
crowding are experienced as unpleasant on some occasions (e.g. in a tube train) but
enjoyable and exciting at other times (e.g. gigs). Previous student projects have
included surveys of the causes of good „atmosphere‟ at festivals, smelly t-shirt
studies and visualization experiments of crowded situations.
3) Mass emergencies. Mass emergencies can bring people together, encouraging
solidarity. Appropriate crowd management can facilitate or undermine this adaptive
response. This topic can be studied through use of archive data, experimental
simulations, or interviews.
4) Critical discourse analysis. This type of project would examine issues of social
construction, in particular the way power and hence subordination is reproduced (and
resisted) within talk and written texts. Such a project will probably use secondary
data, such as newspaper articles, web pages or official documents. Previous student
project topics include: racism in newspaper accounts of asylum seekers;
constructions of sexuality in sex education literature; contested definitions of „mental
illness‟ in and around the new Mental Health Act; masculine identity in male and
female conversation; and pathologizing talk of „mass panic‟ at crowd disasters.
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DORA DUKA (BEHAVIOURAL AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE)
My projects will be mainly on:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Aspects of frontal lobe function and alcohol
Aspects of memory function and alcohol
Aspects of nicotine and alcohol craving
Impulsivity and addictive behaviours
TOM FARSIDES (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
Projects supervised by me will examine what insights self-determination theory has
for encouraging altruistic helping, i.e., helping behaviour motivated by concern for the
positive welfare of others. Self-determination theory says that actions, situations and
relationships which foster feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness are
psychologically attractive and nourishing. Students will investigate this in a domain of
their own choosing, e.g., activism and advocacy, charity fundraising, citizenship,
organ donation campaigning, volunteering, etc. Key readings are given below.
Students supervised by me are likely to particularly benefit if they also take my final
year option on the Psychology of Altruism.
Bartholomew, K. J., Ntoumanis, N., Ryan, R. M., Bosch, J. A., & ThørgersenNtoumani, C. (2011). Self-determination theory and diminished functioning: the role
of interpersonal control and psychological need thwarting. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 37, 1459-1473.
Gagné, M. (2003). The role of autonomy support and autonomy orientation in
prosocial behaviour engagement. Motivation and Emotion, 27, 199-223.
Linardatos, Lisa; Lydon, John E. (2011). Relationship-specific identification and
spontaneous relationship maintenance processes. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 101 (4), 737-753.
Patrick, H., Knee, C. R., Canevello, A., & Lonsbary, C. (2007). The role of need
fulfilment in relationship functioning and well-being: A self-determination theory
perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 (3), 434-457.
Pavey, L., Greitemeyer, T., & Sparks, P. (2011). Highlighting relatedness promotes
prosocial motives and behaviour. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37 (7),
905-917.
Weinstein, N., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). When helping helps: autonomous motivation for
prosocial behaviour and its influence on well-being for the helper and recipient.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (2), 222-244.
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ANDY FIELD (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
Emotional and Cognitive Development
I have been exploring the role of childhood experience in emotional development. I
am interested in supervising projects in the following areas:
 Children’s emotional responses to novel situations/things: We have
shown that even small vignettes containing threat information about a new
animal or situation can lead to changes in their fears that last up to 6-months.
These effects are more prominent in children who are naturally anxious and
can affect children's perceptions of and attention towards objects. My main
interest now is how children‟s processing styles (see below) affect this
learning.
 How children process emotional information. Little is known about how
children acquire certain processing styles and how this relates to their
reactions to emotional information. This includes their use of imagination,
understanding of fact vs. fantasy, and how they process visual and conceptual
emotional information.
 Children and media: What are children‟s emotional reactions to „scary‟
factual and fantasy TV/books? Does cognitive development affect these
responses? Are these responses different in children with different
temperaments? Can it have a positive impact?
 Children’s use of social media: how do children present themselves on
social media websites such as Facebook? How is social media use affected
by personality? Can children use these websites to help through difficult social
transitions?
If you wish to do a project on fears in children I usually expect you to find a school
outside of Brighton in which to collect data. We usually work with 5-10 year olds.
For more information on my research: http://www.cattlab.net/html/research.html
For a list of publications: http://www.cattlab.net/html/publications.html
ANNA FRANKLIN (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY also DEVELOPMENTAL AND
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
My research aims to:
1.) Establish how we perceive and process colour
2.) Understand how colour perception and cognition develops
3.) Use colour as a testing ground for broader theoretical debates, such as how
language and thought interact
My experiments test participants from across the lifespan (infancy to adulthood) and
combine colour science, eye-tracking, psychophysics, and the Event-Related
Potential approach.
Empirical projects supervised by me could address a number of questions:
1.) Does naming colours affect how we perceive them?
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2.) Is there a biological basis to colour preference, or do colour preferences relate
to our colour-object associations?
3.) How does colour constancy (the constant appearance of a colour under
varying lighting conditions) develop?
4.) How do colours affect cognition and behaviour?
5.) How do we get the gist of the colour in a multicoloured visual scene?
6.) Can young infants recognise an object by its colour?
Please see my webpage for a list of my publications which are representative of the
research you could conduct.
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/people/peoplelists/person/256540
ALAN GARNHAM (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I offer projects on language understanding and reasoning, mainly in adults, but also
in children.
My own research has focused on the understanding of pronouns (in particular "he",
"she", "it", "they"). Among other topics, I have been looking at the role of stereotype
and gender information in the interpretation of pronouns (e.g. how does the fact that
most infant teachers are women affect the interpretation of "the infant
teacher…she…” vs. "the infant teacher…he…”).
I‟m also interested in questions about when and why particular types of expression
are used in referring to people (or things) a second or third time – why do we use
pronouns (“the man…he…”), for example, rather than repeating the same expression
(“the man…the man…”)?
My projects on reasoning often involve paper and pencil task such as the Wason
Selection Task, or tasks that require stereotypes to be broken (e.g. realising that "the
surgeon" must be a woman if a passage of text is to make sense). I have also
supervised projects on reasoning in adults and in children.
My language project usually use the “self-paced reading” technique, in which people
read short texts, phrase by phrase, on a computer screen. However, I can also offer
projects in the Human Psychophysiology Lab, using EEG/ERP and Eye Movement
Monitoring Techniques
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PETER HARRIS (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
We are surrounded by messages telling us we should eat more healthily, take more
exercise, reduce alcohol, not binge drink and avoid cigarette smoke. I am interested
in how people respond to such health-risk messages. Even though such messages
contain important, potentially vital information, people often respond defensively to it,
by denying it applies to them or dismissing the arguments in other ways. For several
years I have been undertaking research that examines how self-affirming (which
involves giving people the opportunity to think positively about themselves) reduces
such defensiveness and helps promote readiness to improve health behaviour.
There‟s lots left to discover about how and why self-affirmation does this and how we
can best use it to help people who want to change their health behaviour. I also have
an interest in how people imagine future events and the implications that this has for
their behaviour.
I am interested in supervising projects on these and other topics. I would particularly
welcome students who had access to non-student samples, such as groups of
workers or patient groups. If you can‟t get any of the papers below online or in the
library, you can get a copy from me at [email protected].
1. Self-affirmation and health
This has been my primary research focus for several years now. Below are some
recent publications on the topic. If you can‟t get them online you can get a copy from
me. Some of these publications have involved research conducted as part of final
year projects.
Harris, P. R., Mayle, K, Mabbott, L., & Napper, L. (2007). Self-affirmation reduces
smokers‟ defensiveness to graphic on-pack cigarette warning labels. Health
Psychology, 26, 437-446.
Harris, P. R., & Epton, T. (2009). The impact of self-affirmation on health cognition,
health behaviour and other health-related responses: A narrative review. Social and
Personality Psychology Compass, 3, 962-978.
Harris, P. R. (2011). Self-affirmation and the self-regulation of health behavior
change. Self and Identity, 10, 304-314. Special Issue on “Self/Identity Regulation and
Health”. DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2010.517963
2. Swine Flu and other health scares
How did you respond during the 2009 swine flu pandemic? Did you feel anxious and
take lots of steps to try to avoid catching it or did you feel relatively immune? Did you
feel that there was nothing that you could do? Did you or someone close to you catch
it and if so how did this affect your perceptions of future outbreaks of this and other
diseases? I am interested in how people respond to such events.
Rubin, G. J., et al. (2009). Public perceptions, anxiety, and behaviour change in
relation to the swine flu outbreak: cross sectional telephone survey. British Medical
Journal, 339, b2651
Eastwood, K. et al. (2009). Knowledge about pandemic influenza and compliance
with containment measures among Australians. Bulletin of the World Health
Organisation, 87, 588-594.
3. Imagination
How does imagining an event affect perceptions of that event, such as its likelihood
of occurring?
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Libby, L.K., & Eibach, R.P. (2011). Visual perspective in mental imagery: A
representational tool that functions in judgment, emotion, and self-insight. In M.P.
Zanna and J.M. Olson (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 44,
pp. 185 – 245). San Diego: Academic Press.
Libby, L. K., Shaeffer, E. M., Eibach, R. P., & Slemmer, J. A. (2007). Picture yourself
at the polls: Visual perspective in mental imagery affects self-perception and
behaviour. Psychological Science, 18, 199-203.
Taylor, S.E., et al. (1998). Harnessing the imagination: Mental stimulation, selfregulation, and coping. American Psychologist, 53, 429-439.
4. Responding to health risk information
How do people typically respond to health risk information?
Boney-McCoy, S., Gibbons, F. X., & Gerrard, M. (1999). Self-esteem, compensatory
self-enhancement, and the consideration of health risk. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 25, 954-965.
Good, A., & Abraham, C. (2007). Measuring defensive responses to threatening
messages: A meta analysis of messages. Health Psychology Review,1, 208-229.
Van‟t Riet, J. & Ruiter, R.A.C. (2011). Defensive reactions to health promoting
information: an overview and implications for future research. Health Psychology
Review, DOI:10.1080/17437199.2011.606782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2011.606782.
GRAHAM HOLE (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I'm interested in the following areas:
1.
Face perception:
a) How do we recognise faces? What is the nature of the representations of
faces that we use for this purpose - are they based on features, overall facial
configuration, or a mixture of the two? In particular, I'm particularly interested
at the moment in "face adaptation effects". Prolonged viewing of a face
affects its appearance without necessarily affecting that of other faces. For
example, staring at a male face makes an ambiguous face look female, and
vice versa. This technique can be used as a tool to explore the nature of the
brain systems underlying face processing.,
b) How does processing of familiar faces differ from that of unfamiliar faces?
How well can people recognise faces on the basis of limited information
available in, for example, CCTV footage?
c) Age perception: how do we know how old an unfamiliar face is, and (a
separate question) how do we recognise faces despite the ravages of time?
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JESSICA HORST (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY;
also COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
During early childhood, children are developing and learning very rapidly. For
example, by some estimates children are learning up to one new word per waking
hour! My research focuses primarily on early cognitive development and language.
Typically, my students work with individual toddlers and preschoolers and present
them with a task in which they have to pick an object from an array and we can infer
from this something about what they know about what objects are called or what
categories objects belong to. Other studies involve infant habituation/familiarization
and reading storybooks to children.
My goals for each of my project students is for the student to learn about psychology,
develop skills that can be used later as a postgraduate or at a job and to gain insight
into why developmental psychology is so fascinating. My goals for each of my
projects are for them to be well-designed and implemented (which is why I work oneon-one with students during the design phase) and to yield publishable results (see
e.g. Horst, Scott & Pollard, 2010 and Horst, Parsons & Bryan, 2011).
For more information check out: www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/wordlab or follow the
WORD Lab on Facebook.
DONNA JESSOP (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise research projects in the areas of health psychology and environmental
psychology. I am interested in supervising projects on the following topics:
1. Responses to threatening information. In day to day life we are frequently
presented with potentially threatening information. For example, we might be
exposed to a news item about global warming or a health promotion campaign about
the potentially fatal consequences of binge drinking. It is often assumed that
exposure to such information will motivate us to perform associated recommended
behaviour(s), for example reducing our carbon footprint or limiting our alcohol
consumption. However, the evidence suggests that people tend to respond
defensively to threatening information, for example by minimising its importance. I am
interested in exploring how we can reduce such defensive responses and hence,
ultimately, develop effective environmental and health promotion campaigns.
2. The impact of financial circumstances on student health. The introduction of
tuition fees has resulted in a situation where students typically accrue substantial
debt over the course of their studies. It is proposed that such debts - and associated
financial difficulties - might have important implications for students‟ physical and
mental health. I am interested in supervising projects exploring how financial
difficulties might influence students‟ health. For example, students who encounter
financial difficulties may experience greater levels of stress and negative emotion,
which could in turn have implications for health.
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BEENA KHURANA & ROMI NIJHAWAN (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
Projects conducted in the Perception Action Cognition (PAC) lab will be jointly
supervised by Beena Khurana and Romi Nijhawan. The primary supervisor will
depend upon the nature of the project.
Beena Khurana is interested in a range of topics in Visual Cognition such as face
perception, visual attention, and human memory. Students interested in topics such
as the differences between the processing of familiar versus unfamiliar faces, face
recognition, face categorization, face memory, models of face processing, perception
of in- group versus out-group faces, direction of eye-gaze, facial preference, and
evolutionary perspectives on facial beauty and attractiveness are welcome to work
with me. I study visual attention using different paradigms such as orienting, visual
search, and priming. Lastly, I am also open to research on the interaction of
perception and action. Selected publications below provide a good introduction to the
kind of research that is conducted in the PAC Lab under my supervision.
Romi Nijhawan is interested in visual perception and action. Students will have
opportunity to get involved with projects studying motion perception, pattern and
shape perception, and visual illusions. I am also interested in touch perception.
Depending on what the student is interested in, the methodology used for conducting
project research will vary. Some students may be involved with collecting data using
a computer, while others may be involved with putting together a physical display or
drawings for data collection. Students will be free to choose the topic of their
interest, and help will be provided for honing of ideas. Alternatively, students will
have opportunity to be involved with ongoing research.
Note that while some projects will require analogue devices, most projects in the
PAC lab are conducted on computers and therefore students will be expected to
acquire computing skills necessary for stimulus acquisition, image manipulation,
experiment set up using software packages, and data collection.
Habibi, R. & Khurana, B. (in press). Spontaneous Gender Categorization in
Masking and Priming Studies: Key for Distinguishing Jane from John Doe but not
Madonna from Sinatra, PLoSOne.
Khurana, B. & Nijhawan, R. (2010). Space and time: The fabric of thought and
reality. In Romi Nijhawan and Beena Khurana (Eds.) Space and Time in Perception
and Action (pp. 1-6). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Khurana, B., Habibi, R., Po, J., & Wright, D.B. (2009). Jane versus John: Facial
evaluation as a function of informative eye gaze. Social Cognition, 27, 150-160.
Parkinson, J., & Khurana, B. (2007). Temporal order of strokes primes letter
recognition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60(9), 1265-1274.
Khurana, B., Carter, R. M., Watanabe, K., & Nijhawan, R. (2006). Flash-lag
chimeras: The role of perceived alignment in the composite face effect. Vision
Research, 46 (17), 2757-2772.
Khurana, B., Smith, W., Baker, M. (2000). Not to be and then to be: Visual
representation of ignored unfamiliar faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception & Performance, 26 (1), 246–263.
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SARAH KING (BEHAVIOURAL & CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE)
My lab is seeking to establish how molecular events in the brain are able to influence
and affect behaviour. I will be offering projects on the molecular mechanisms
underlying synaptic plasticity, with particular interest in how drugs of abuse affect
specific neurocircuits leading to loss of control and drug addiction. Projects in my lab
will involve molecular biological techniques to assess neurochemical and molecular
alterations that may underlie the actions of drugs of abuse on brain and
behaviour. Brain tissue from genetically altered mice exposed to alcohol or cocaine
will be processed and analyzed for changes in both protein levels and activity. As
these projects are lab based there are certain procedures that need to be
considered. Many procedures will require the presence of, a qualified person.
Therefore you must be able and willing to fit in your timing with the needs of the
people who are helping you.
DAVID LEAVENS (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY;
also COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I am interested in a fairly wide range of topics, from nonverbal communication by
chimpanzees and human babies to understanding the circumstances in which people
preen and fidget. I am generally happy to supervise projects outside my areas of
expertise, so I encourage my students to develop their own research topics, if they
want to. Some of the research projects I have supervised include:


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Audience effects on gestural communication by chimpanzees (from archival
videotape)
Replications of studies originally using chimpanzees and human children with
human adults
Exchange of emotionality between babies and their parents during
communication
Effects of a model‟s waist-to-hip ratio on product attractiveness
Asymmetries in a variety of manual actions in a group of zoo-housed
chimpanzees
Analyses of spatial skill and personality variables in relation to how well people
copy complex manual actions
Influences of foreign accents and facial attractiveness on judgements of
attractiveness in human adults
Vocal and visual indices of attraction in dating contexts
My recent publications and areas of research interests are also summarised at:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/profile114996.html. Please note that I no longer
supervise research with children.
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KAREN LONG (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise projects in two main areas:
1. Intragroup Processes
I would be keen to supervise projects falling under this general heading. Research in
this area has already established that there are clear differences in intergroup and
intragroup behaviour depending on how strongly an individual identifies with their
group. For high identifiers, comparisons with other ingroup members and reputation
within the group are likely to be important predictors of group-related behaviour.
There are a number of issues that could be investigated in projects including:
 Differences in intergroup or intragroup behaviour as a function of your position
within the ingroup (e.g. core vs. peripheral)
 Differences in intergroup or intragroup behaviour as a function of the respect
received from other ingroup members
 Reactions to criticism from other ingroup members (depending on properties
of the perceiver and/or the criticiser)
These and other issues could be investigated in a variety of settings, including
occupational settings or sports teams
2. Social Psychological aspects of internet use
I would be happy to supervise projects investigating social psychological aspects of
(almost) any kind of activity on the internet. Recent projects have investigated selfpresentational motives in UK and Japanese SNS users, and motives underlying
knowledge sharing on community forums.
KAREN McCOMB (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I primarily supervise projects on vocal communication and cognitive abilities in
animals (specifically mammals). Students doing these projects typically benefit by
working in pairs.
 Some projects with me involve working with animals directly. I can offer to
supervise projects investigating vocal communication and social intelligence in
horses, domestic dogs and cats (other species can be also considered). For
projects on horses, dogs and cats, students should have potential access to study
animals, some experience with the species involved, and be prepared to set up
arrangements with stables/pet owners, although we can help with this. For certain
projects (in particular those on horses), having your own transport will be important
- or sharing transport with another student working on the project.
 Projects may alternatively involve analysing videotapes already collected to
address functional questions about animal communication or cognitive abilities.
We have a library of videotapes on reactions to our field playback experiments that
are potentially available for this.
During their projects, students will work within the Mammal Vocal Communication
and Cognition Research group and interact with our DPhil students and postdocs.
(http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/cmvcr/Home.html). Students doing projects with me
are encouraged to take the Animal Vocal Communication and/or Human Vocal
Communication courses.
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More detail on my research interests can be found at:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/1752
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/cmvcr/Home.html
MICHAEL MORGAN (BEHAVIOURAL AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE)
I supervise projects on: Cross-cultural differences in substance attitudes,
expectancies and patterns of use. Social cognition and personality disorders in
recreational drug users versus non-users. Sub-types of self-reported and behavioural
impulsivity in recreational drug users vs.non-users. Age of first use of cannabis as a
risk factor for self-reported psychopathology. Gender differences in: self-reported
psychopathology, empathy and social cognition as a function of the extent of use of
illicit drugs. Attitudes towards, experience of and expectancies about: novel abused
substances. Situational (environmental) and familial (genetic) factors determining
illicit drug use choices
ROMI NIJHAWAN: see BEENA KHURANA & ROMI NIJHAWAN
JANE OAKHILL (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I am willing to supervise projects in two main areas: children's reading and text
comprehension, and children‟s and adults‟ inferences from text. I am interested in
reading development and children's and young adults' difficulties with text
comprehension. There are various possibilities within these topics: e.g. the influence
of interest levels on motivation and text comprehension; the contributions of different
aspects of vocabulary skill to text comprehension; the age at which children start to
read words automatically (and show a Stroop effect) to name a few.
In the area of inferences from text, I am particularly interested in inferences based on
stereotypes (e.g. the assumption that a surgeon is male, or that a nurse is female).
Such inferences seem to be immediate and compelling, and are hard to suppress.
There is scope for developing projects in this area, related to on-going studies in our
lab and also the possibility of exploring children‟s gender stereotypes.
Relevant background reading:
(email me if you‟re interested – I can supply PDFs of most of the below)
Oakhill, J.V. and Cain, K. (2007). Introduction to comprehension development.
In Cain, K. and Oakhill, J.V. (Eds) (2007). Children’s Comprehension problems
in oral and written language. Guilford Press.
Cain, K. and Oakhill, J.V. (2007). Reading comprehension difficulties: correlates,
causes, and consequences. In Cain, K. and Oakhill, J.V. (Eds). Children’s
comprehension problems in oral and written language. Guilford Press.
Cornoldi, C. and Oakhill, J.V. (Eds) (1996) Reading Comprehension Difficulties:
Processes and Remediation. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Inc.
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Oakhill, J. V., Garnham, A., & Reynolds, D. J. (2005) Immediate activation of
stereotypical gender information in reading. Memory and Cognition, 33, 972-983.
Reynolds, D., Garnham, A. and Oakhill, J.V. (2006) Evidence of Immediate
Activation of Gender Information from a Social Role Name. Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 59, 886-903
NB: Anyone wishing to do a project with me with children must have access to
children other than in Brighton schools, as there is already a lot of pressure on local
schools.
BONNY OLIVER (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
As part of the national Twins Early Development Study, we have collected written
stories from twins when they were 9 years old. Stimuli consisted of three sequential
pictures depicting unusual events on a farm; children were asked to write a story of
their choice from these pictures. Some 4000 stories (from approximately 2000 pairs
of twins) are available for coding. Project students will work together to code a subset of these stories and produce distinct projects with different hypotheses/research
questions. Students may either adapt existing coding schemes, or formulate new
schemes to answer specific questions of interest. For example, coding schemes for
the use of mental state language, violent/hostile or prosocial themes, or creativity are
among possibilities for coding. These data can then be linked to most other data
collected as part of the project (e.g., risk factors, conduct problems,
reactive/proactive aggression, theory of mind, friendships, anxiety, depression,
school achievement, gender role attitudes, parenting). Please note: these projects
do not involve collecting data through testing, but rather through coding existing
written stories from the children.
ALISON PIKE (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise projects that are linked to an on-going research project, the Sisters and
Brothers study. The study concerns family relationships (i.e., marital, parent-child,
and sibling) and children‟s development during childhood and early adolescence
(children are aged 8-13). Our data collection includes videotaped interactions
between the siblings, as well as between the children and their mothers. Project
students work together in order to code a sub-set of these videotaped interactions
(but produce distinct projects with different hypotheses/research questions).
Students either adapt existing schemes, or formulate new schemes to answer
questions of interest to particular students. These data can then be linked to any
other data collected as part of the project (e.g., child temperament, vocabulary,
parent personality, gender role attitudes, parental employment, children‟s behaviour
problems). Please note that these projects do not involve testing “live” children.
Your “data collection” consists of coding existing videotaped family interactions.
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DAVID REBY (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise projects on animal or human vocal communication. This includes studying
the production and perception of acoustic cues to identity, gender, age, size, emotion
and motivation in animal vocalisations and human speech.
In animals, I can supervise projects on birds (e.g. herring gulls), wild mammals (e.g.
deer) and companion or farmed animals (e.g. dogs, sheep).
In humans, I am particularly interested in studies that investigate how people
(including children) modify their voice to mimic categories of callers (gender, size,
emotions, age), and how listeners use specific acoustic cues to identify these
categories. I am also interested in research on human nonverbal vocalizations
(screams, grunts, etc. ), combining both evolutionary or psychological perspectives.
Students will carry-out their project in the laboratory of the Mammal Vocal
Communication and Cognition Research group, where they can use professional
audio and video recording equipment, computers for sound analysis, re-synthesis
and video analysis, and loudspeakers for playback experiments.
Students wanting to do projects with me this year are encouraged to take the Animal
Vocal Communication and/or Human Vocal Communication courses.
TAMZIN RIPLEY: See HANS CROMBAG & TAMZIN RIPLEY (BEHAVIOURAL &
CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE)
JENNY RUSTED (BEHAVIOURAL AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE;
also COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
This year, I will be offering projects that examine prospective memory, action-based
memory, and the effects of exercise on cognitive performance. These projects will
include:
1. Studies with older volunteers. Relative to retrospective memory, PM is believed to
be more dependent on internal control mechanisms and it is suggested that this
process must be guided either by external cues, or in their absence, self-initiated
cues. It has been argued that this requirement for self-initiated remembering means
that PM tasks are more susceptible to the effects of ageing, and indeed failures of
PM are frequently reported by older adults. Based on previous work, project work
will examine factors that influence PM performance in older adults. Some projects
may use the archived database of video material to analyse error patterns in
everyday PM. Other projects will involve collection of data on novel tasks that we
have developed. Projects with older people WILL NOT include working with people
with dementia. For work with healthy older adults, students may need CRB checks,
which should be arranged before the beginning of the autumn term.
2.Studies with student-based population. These projects will be lab-based studies,
and will explore PM on computer-based tasks that allow us to separate and examine
its component processes. Some projects may also include psychopharmacological
manipulations.
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3.Studies to explore cognitive changes associated with short term and longer term
exercise regimes in older and young adults, including the possibility of analysing data
from an archive of information collected from older adults with a diagnosis of
dementia.
RYAN SCOTT (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
My primary research interests are in consciousness, metacognition (awareness of
knowing) and implicit learning (learning without conscious awareness). I employ a
variety of methods and paradigms including subliminal presentation techniques,
implicit learning tasks, eye-tracking, EMG (Electromyography), SCR (Skin
Conductance Response) and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) in order to
investigate a range of questions relating to these topics.
Typical projects have included:
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Examining the scope and limitations of unconscious learning. Projects employing
a variety of subliminal methods have examined our capacity for unconscious
associative learning both within a single domain and across modalities.
Evaluating the extent to which metacognitive insight (conscious awareness of the
knowledge we possess) is dependent on key cortical regions. For example, by
studying how conscious awareness of knowledge acquired in an implicit learning
task is influenced by TMS to the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex.
Examining the extent to which language influences the speed with which we gain
conscious access to perceived stimuli – for example, whether conscious
perception is given more rapidly for faces with known names than for those which
are equally familiar but unnamed.
The role of feedback on the emergence of conscious knowledge – for example
examining whether awareness of possessing knowledge can be delayed or
accelerated by constraining the nature of feedback on an unconscious or implicit
learning task.
How learning can be used to detect conscious awareness or provide
communication with patients lacking physical movement. NOTE, projects will not
include working with patients but may involve piloting potential methods in normal
subjects.
Examining the extent to which embodied responses (such as imperceptible
changes in facial tension) influence emotional states and implicit emotion
perception. For example, by contrasting reported emotional attributions with EMG
responses elicited by emotional facial expressions presented outside of conscious
awareness.
There is also some scope for investigations relating to hypnotic suggestibility.
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PAUL SPARKS (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)

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What psychological factors influence whether or not people engage in proenvironmental actions?
Can (e.g., self-affirmation or hypocrisy or social norm) interventions be used to
change people‟s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour?
I am offering supervision for projects that involve (i) developments to self-affirmation
theory or to the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), or (ii) the application of hypocrisy
or social norm manipulations. These projects can involve a range of substantive topic
areas (such as pro-environmental actions or – possibly – health-related behaviours).
Self-affirmation theory projects might focus, for example, on people‟s responses to
risk information, on their sense of self-integrity, and/or on novel forms of selfaffirmation manipulation. TPB projects which incorporate a concern with, for
example, moral judgements, self-identity, and social norms would be very compatible
with current research work. Students may develop their own ideas, or carry out
extensions to our ongoing research in these areas, or engage in some mixture of the
two!
VIV VIGNOLES (SOCIAL AND APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY)
I am happy to supervise projects in the areas of self and identity, especially
motivational processes and/or the influence of culture and context on identity
processes.
One aim of my research is to develop an integrated theoretical model of identity
motivation applicable to individual, relational and group levels of identity. In an
historical context where identities are less and less 'given' by social structure, why do
we perceive some aspects of our identities as more central than others, why are we
happier with some aspects of our identities than we are with others, and why do we
seek to communicate some aspects of our identities more than others in our
everyday actions? Can we identify causes and consequences of individual
differences in the motives underlying identity?
A second aim is to explore how the construction of identities is constrained or
enabled by cultural or contextual meaning and value systems, which may involve
both cross-national and within-national comparative research. How do people
living in different socio-cultural environments perceive and evaluate themselves, and
what are the implications of these differences? How do sociocultural ideals and
values affect individual well-being?
Past projects in these theoretical areas have included studies of:
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The relationship of identity motives to individual differences in wellbeing, prejudice, lifestyle choices and interpersonal attraction,
Effects of self-threats (mortality salience, ostracism) on identity
construction,
Cross-cultural differences in the contents of actual and ideal selves,
Material possessions and the construction of identity, Possible
antecedents and consequences of narcissism.
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These projects have tended to involve correlational methods and statistical
analyses such as multiple regression, although not exclusively so. A few
students have used advanced techniques such as multilevel modelling, although this
is not a requirement.
JAMIE WARD (COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY)
My current research concerns how our different senses are linked together (multisensory perception) and the implications that this might have for cognition (language,
memory, attention, etc.). I am particularly interested in the phenomenon of
synaesthesia, whereby some people experience a 'mixing of the senses' (e.g. the
number 5 is green; music evoked shapes; and watching someone touched may elicit
touch on one‟s own body). You can find out more about my research area at
www.syn.sussex.ac.uk
These are of the current research questions within our research group:
* How is it possible to experience pain/touch when we see someone else being
touched, and how does this relate to empathy?
* Can blind people learn to see by using their other senses? We are currently
experimenting with a device that converts vision to sound to help blind people to
'hear sights'.
* How might synaesthesia lead to enhancements in memory?
* Can hypnosis be used to induce synaesthesia like experiences or temporarily block
synaesthesia?
Students working with me this year have to be prepared to get their project plans well
organised early on so that they can complete their data collection during autumn
term.
MARTIN YEOMANS (BEHAVIOURAL AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE)
My current research examines a wide range of aspects of human eating and drinking
behaviours, and I am happy to supervise projects in any area relating to these
interests. Past projects have included studies of the role of expectations in satiety,
evaluation of the role of sensory factors in appetite, conditioned flavour preferences,
mood/food interactions, the role of basic senses such as taste in flavour perception,
effects of dieting, parental influences on eating, what individual differences make
people prone to weight gain and the basis of binge eating. Some projects are based
on specific laboratory studies, others use non-laboratory methods. Note that
although many projects relate to our understanding of eating disorders, I am not able
to supervise projects which work with clinical populations.
This year I would be particularly interested in projects:
 Understanding the role of expectations in flavour perception
 Looking at interactions between vision, smell and taste in flavour perception
 Testing whether you can train people to change their habitual eating rate
 Examining effects of ingredients from energy drinks on mood and cognitive
performance
 Exploring individual differences in susceptibility to gain weight
 Identifying factors leading to the breakdown of dieting
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School Of Psychology
Choosing Empirical Projects 2012-2013



Understanding why we have taste receptors for umami (the taste of MSG)
Exploring links between eating and addiction, particularly in relation to
impulsivity
Investigating anticipatory hedonic contrast effects on eating
NICOLA YUILL (DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
I supervise projects in social and cognitive development, including investigating and
enhancing children‟ s collaborative interaction, social understanding and language
comprehension. Examples of previous projects include evaluating intervention for
social play -- a medieval castle playset with electronic tags to record sounds,
designing a playground to increase social interaction in autism (see Yuill et al. paper
in Jnl. Autism & Dev Disorders, 2007, available on-line only), assessing language
difficulties in children excluded from school (Yuill & Ripley, Brit. Jnl. Ed Psych, 2006)
and the role of multi-user technology in supporting collaborative play in children with
autism and other developmental disabilities.
Some projects may work within existing research programmes, and more details are
on my lab pages: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/chatlab/
Students can also make good use of archival data, e.g. the longitudinal 'SUMS'
project which looks at the role of mothers mental state language in developing
children's social understanding from 3 to 10 years (e.g. see Ruffman et al. Child
Development, 2002), which involves coding and analysing video data already
collected.
You can find these
[email protected]
articles
in
the
27
library,
on
line,
or
by
emailing
CHOOSING EMPIRICAL PROJECTS 2012/2013
Guidance on Choosing & Allocation
As you know, you must carry out a project as part of your final year work. The project
provides an opportunity for you to discover what it is like to do original research, and most
people find it very rewarding. We offer a wide variety of final year projects in Psychology –
on topics that are related to the four research groupings within the department / specific
research interests of the faculty. Descriptions of these groupings and the research
interests of current members of faculty are given in the accompanying information booklet.
You are free to list preferences for any of these research areas / faculty as supervisors but
your list of supervisor choices must include at least one faculty member from each of
the research groups.
We will try to allocate you a project in one of your preferred research areas. However, it is
important to be aware that individual supervisors are often oversubscribed and we cannot
guarantee particular research areas or supervisors. Bear in mind that supervisors are not
obliged to take more than 5 students and yet some are the first choice of scores of
students. It is essential (and in your interests) that you list the 4 DIFFERENT RESEARCH
GROUPINGS/AREAS IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE and give 8 CHOICES OF
SUPERVISOR. Remember, your list of supervisor choices must include at least one
faculty member from each of the research groups. Where supervisors are highly
oversubscribed they may be given the opportunity to select students from those that have
listed them as first choice. Note that we will also have new faculty joining us later this year
and you may be allocated one of these where research interests are appropriate. When a
final list of students matched with projects supervisors is available, the Psychology office
will email you to say that you may contact them to find out who your supervisor is.
When you have considered the list of research areas and supervisors, you may wish to
discuss possible topics for projects with supervisors whose research is of particular
interest to you. You will have a very valuable opportunity to talk with potential supervisors
at the Options/Projects Fair (or you may be able to arrange a meeting with them at another
time). If you want to get in touch with supervisors after the Fair, please use email for initial
enquiries as supervisors offering projects in popular areas may not be able to see students
individually. For faculty contact details see
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/internal/people/peoplelists/a-z
When you have decided on your choices, print out and fill in the form on the next page and
SUBMIT IT TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OFFICE BY 4pm on FRIDAY OF WEEK 9.
Once you have found out who your supervisor is, you should contact them as soon as
possible and discuss the project in more detail - in some projects it may be appropriate
for you to get started over the summer vacation.
Karen McComb
[email protected]
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PROJECT CHOICE FORM
YOUR NAME (in capitals):
Degree Programme:
My preferred research areas (chosen from the 4 Research Groupings/Areas
described in the choice booklet) in order of preference are:
First choice:
Second choice:
Third choice:
Fourth choice:
I would prefer my project supervisor to be:
First choice:
Second choice:
Third choice:
Fourth choice:
Fifth choice:
Sixth choice:
Seventh choice:
Eighth choice:
If you have specific reasons for choosing particular research
areas/supervisors please note them here:
If you do not wish to conduct a behavioural and clinical neuroscience project
involving animals please state here:
Your Signature
PLEASE SUBMIT A HARDCOPY OF THIS FORM TO THE
PSYCHOLOGY SCHOOL OFFICE BY 4pm on FRIDAY OF WEEK 9