People
Postgraduate Students & RAs
Areas for supervision of postgraduate theses and undergraduate projects:
Various topics in social perception and cognition, and social cognitive neuroscience, including (but not limited to): face perception, emotion perception, the perception of biological motion, empathy and emotional contagion.
Current Postgraduate Research Students:
First/principal supervision:
Applications welcome! Please contact me for further information.
Second/co-supervision:
Lauryn Clucas (Ph.D., full-time, 2023 - present): co-supervised with Dr. Sam Forbes (primary supervisor). Thesis project: How gesture affects language development in infants, with the aim of facilitating word learning and avoiding language delay.
Past Postgraduate Research Students:
Philip Howlett (Ph.D., full-time, 2020-2023): co-supervised with Dr. Magdalena Rychlowska (primary supervisor) and Dr. Gülseli Baysu (second supervisor). Thesis project: Cross-cultural Variation in Friendship Habits and Emotion Recognition.
Jake Brooker (Ph.D., full-time, from 2019): co-supervised with Dr. Zanna Clay (primary supervisor). Thesis project: A comparison of the empathic tendencies and conflict management strategies of our closest living relatives; chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus)
Rachel Mowbray (Ph.D., full-time, 2017-2020): co-supervised with Dr. Dorothy Cowie (primary supervisor). Thesis project: The impact of dance training on the development of whole-body movement.
Nazire Duran (Ph.D., full-time, from 2016-2020): with Prof. Amanda Ellison (second supervisor). Thesis project: Foveal versus extrafoveal visual processing of facial features underpinning emotion recognition.
Robert Swalwell (Ph.D., full-time, 2014-2019): co-supervised with Dr. Daniel Smith (primary supervisor). Thesis project: An investigation of inhibition of return to social vs. non-social stimuli.
Yan Birch (Ph.D., full-time, 2013-2017): co-supervised with Dr. Amanda Ellison (primary supervisor). Thesis: Re-examining rumination: An investigation into the relative contributions of reflective and brooding ruminative processes to problem solving
John Thoresen (Ph.D., part-time, October 2007-September 2012). Thesis title: Body cues drive first impressions. John is now a post-doc at the Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique de Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Sheena Laws (M.Sc. by research, part-time, completed August 2009, jointly supervised with Dr. Liz Meins) - Emotion perception in childhood: Relationships with attachment security and internal working models.
M.Sc./ M.A. Dissertation Students:
2018-19:
Sophia Monaghan: The role of the right temporoparietal junction in mental and self-rotation (jointly supervised with Dr Andrew Martin, visiting research fellow from University of Queensland)
Laura Gordon: The role of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on the sense of agency: a high-definition transcranial direct current study (jointly supervised with Dr Andrew Martin, visiting research fellow from University of Queensland)
Ziyi Zhang: The role of bodily awareness in social cognition (jointly supervised with Dr Andrew Martin, visiting research fellow from University of Queensland)
2014-15:
George Goss: The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation over inferior frontal gyrus on the recognition of facial expressions of emotion.
Kristy Lungo: Childhood Social Adversity Specific to Bullying as it relates to Cognitive Functioning and Auditory Hallucinatory-Like Experiences (co-supervised with Dr. David Smailes)
2013-14:
Jenny Scott: The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation over supramarginal gyrus on the recognition of facial and bodily expressions of emotion.
2012-13:
Ilayda Turk: The role of eye fixation and saccades in the perception of emotion from the face.
Jaime Galasso: Does exogenously cueing attention to facial features influence emotion recognition?
2011-12:
Arathi Ruben: Alexithymia and the recognition of bodily expressions of emotion
Lina Rabi: The visual, auditory and visuo-auditory perception of emotion from dance.
Lincoln Lo: The Role of Facial Expression in Recognising Happy and Angry Faces at Different Intensities
2010-11:
Kay Foreman: The temporal specificities of rOFA and rSTS involvement during judgements of trustworthiness from faces.
Agnieszka Jazdzyk: Are affective responses to eye contact related to autism-spectrum quotient scores?
2008-09:
Milena Dzhelyova: Is STS critically involved in judging trustworthiness from the face?
Milena went on to do a PhD at St. Andrews University, Scotland, under the supervision of Dr. Ines Jentzsch and Prof. David Perrett, from where she went to a post-doc position at the Universite catholique de Louvain, Belgium, working with Prof. Bruno Rossion.
Xiaoyi Zou: An investigation of the effects of subliminal presentations of facial expressions on face adaptation and affective judgements.
2007-08:
Ellen Mayfield and Sian Nooney: Investigating skin conductance and facial electromyographic responses to faces varying in trustworthiness
Kate Leese and Ruth Jennings-Hobbs (jointly supervised with Dr. Sue Leekam) - The relationship of gesture and theory of mind to language ability in young children.
2005-06:
Conn Dorai-Raj & Brian Murray (jointly supervised with Dr. Sue Leekam) - The understanding of gesture in young children.
Visiting Research Students and Assistants
Yessica Herrera - Visited from University of Veracruz, Mexico, August-December, 2015, funded by a Mexican scholarship: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Worked on a project for her Masters thesis, on the effects of psychological stress on dance performance.
Karthiha Anantharajah - Visited from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, September-December 2013, funded by ERASMUS. Worked on projects investigating the perception of trustworthiness, sex and emotion from faces.
Ayşe Işılay Konuk - Visited from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, June-September 2013, funded by ERASMUS. Worked on projects investigating the perception of trustworthiness, sex and emotion from faces.