Human cognitive neuroscience
Our core interests are in memory, attention, executive function, visual cognition, and perceptuo-motor control
This research group comprises academics with a diverse set of research interests spanning cognitive neuroscience. Areas of research include visual processing, control of action, memory, language, attention, executive functions, social cognition, and higher-level cognition and reasoning. The group uses traditional experimental psychology and neuropsychology, neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI, fNIRS and EEG, brain stimulation, eye-tracking, motion tracking, computational modelling and clinical assessment. Staff work with both normally functioning children and adults and people with neurological disorders.
Labs and facilities at the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
Current research topics of interest
| Sharon Abrahams | Neuropsychology - exploring cognition and behaviour in healthy people and those with neurological disease; assessment and treatment of cognitive problems within the health services. |
| Thomas Bak | Language learning and bi-/multilingualism, cognitive functions and wellbeing, language-specificity of memory and changes in language use/preference in multilinguals across the lifespan (particularly in ageing); cross-linguistic, cross-cultural and multilingual aspects of cognitive assessment, management and treatment (including psychotherapy). |
| Neil Bramley | Active and/or causal learning; computational accounts of creativity or thinking. |
| Nicolas Chevalier | Cognitive control in children; neurocognitive development. |
| Sergio Della Sala | Forgetting; amnesia. |
| Zachary Horne | Why people form misconceptions about science and how to correct those misconceptions (a key aspect of the project will be using social media data and other naturalistic datasets to investigate these issues)? A project addressing two questions: when people attempt to persuade, how do they begin to produce an argument to convince their interlocutor and how persuasive do these arguments tend to be? |
| Sarah E. MacPherson | Social cognition in aging; executive function in aging. |
| Jasna Martinovic | Colour categorisation; neural variability in EEG signals. |
| Robert McIntosh | Neural control of visual perception and visually-guided action in humans (see recent publications). |
| Dan Mirman | Functional communication deficits in aphasia; using intracranial EEG to investigate the neurobiology of language. |
| Adam Moore | The interaction between political ideology and desire(s) for power; power motives and moral judgements. |
| Hilary Richardson | Neural correlates of theory of mind development (longitudinal study; existing fMRI dataset + potential for new data collection); impacts of early experience (e.g., social relationships, linguistic experience) on social development. |
| Edward Silson | Visual perception; memory recall. |
| Paul Hoffman* | Behavioural and neuroimaging studies of semantic knowledge and its role in language. Effects of healthy ageing, stroke and dementia on semantic memory. |
* Staff member is not accepting new PhD students for 2022 entry.
Human Cognitive Neuroscience research group
For queries about general admissions, please contact the Postgraduate Office.
To discuss academic matters, contact the Programme Director, Rene Mottus.