PRISM - Key Persons
Carl Jackson (2006-2009) Carl joined the lab as a postdoc fresh from his PhD in Nottingham. He worked on unimanual and bimanual behavioural studies, including the identification of a novel somatosensory illusion and an investigation into the effect of proprioception on visual attention. He then resided in Kingston, Ontario, Canada for his second postdoc at Queen's University.
Job Titles:
- Student, Co - Supervision Raymond Reynolds, Sport, Exercise Sciences & Rehabilitation )
Job Titles:
- Technical Support Officer - Various Periods 2010 - 2012 )
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Research Fellow
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer
- Senior Lecturer / School of Psychology
Research Interests
Neural encoding and representation in the brain
How is learned information and knowledge represented and encoded in the human cortex?
Reading and Visual Word Recognition
One specific application of the above problem of information encoding is the challenge of understanding precisely how orthography (written language) is encoded in the brain. I am therefore interested in understanding how visual processing gives rise to word recognition and reading and the relationships between letter-string position encoding, dynamic visual attention and visual word recognition.
Reading impairments and dyslexia
I am also interested in how auditory and visual processing perceptual impairments may give rise to reading impairments and developmental dyslexia. What are the consequences for the encoding and representation of language - phonology and orthography - in these situations?
Theory of Mind, Social Cognition and the Role of the TPJ
What function does the temporo-parietal junction have in the functioning of the brain? What aspects of Theory of Mind processing and Social Cognition does it subserve? Can it be parcellated in smaller functional regions, and if so, what precise functions do these serve?
Clinical and Psychiatric Applications
I have recently become interested in looking at the role of the TPJ in being hyper- or hypo-activated and/or how it may be differently connected in various clinical and psychiatric groups such as Giles de la Tourette's Syndrome.
Emma Gowen (2004-2006) Emma joined the lab in February 2004, just after the move from Oxford, having completed her PhD at The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) with Professor Richard Abadi, examining saccadic fixation instabilities. She has worked on four main research investigations - whether Asperger's syndrome individuals predict their own and others' actions in the normal way; the control of eye-hand interactions during tracing and drawing; how fixational eye movements are related to attention shifts; how observation and execution of actions interfere. In 2006 she was appointed as a lecturer in Ophthalmology at Manchester.
Gay Swait (2005 -2014) Gay completed a PhD part-time, co-supervised with Dr Alison Rushton, Health Sciences, on the relationship between neck pain and oculomotor control. She was part funded by a McTimoney College of Chiropracty Scholarship. She is a self-employed chiropractor.
James Stanley (2004-2006) James arrived almost the same day we moved to Birmingham, having just completed his PhD on emotional photographic stimuli and the startle reflex, in the Department of Psychology, University of Otago, New Zealand, under the supervision of Prof Bob Knight. He also worked as a research assistant for Prof Jeff Miller at Otago, recording EEG signals for studies in cognitive psychophysiology. He has worked on how observing another individual performing a movement interacts with our own performance of a similar movement, and the processes by which such observation causes interference in performed movements; on how forward modelling of actions leads to improved visual discrimination, and on top-down modulation of the perception of biological motion. In Dec 2006 he left to return to New Zealand.
Joe Galea (2004-2008) Joe joined us as a PhD student after completing his degree in Sport & Exercise Sciences. He worked on issues of motor learning and bimanual adaptation to visual and dynamic perturbations. He moved on to a post-doctorial fellow at Johns Hopkins University.
Jon Kennedy (2009-2012) was a post-doc in the lab for three years, after completion of his PhD at Cardiff. He was modelling the multiple rates of motor learning, using extensions and modifications to the dual-state model proposed by Maurice Smith and colleagues. He left in 2012 and returned to his early area of mental health nursing.
Kianoush Nazarpour (2007-2009) Kia joined the lab while he was a PhD student at Cardiff University, and spent two years with us. He worked on brain computer interfacing. He moved on to his second post-doctoral position in Newcastle in October 09.
Neil Albert (2006-2008) Neil came from a PhD with Richard Ivry, and spent two years with us (or rather 2 years travelling on the trains to and from Chester). He worked on bimanual skill learning, on inhibition of voluntary actions and on the influence of learning on resting state networks. In addition, he collaborated on a wide number of ongoing projects. He moved on to his second post-doctoral position in Chicago in Dec 08.
Job Titles:
- Student, Co - Supervision With Michael Grey, Sport & Exercise Sciences )
Rob Hardwick (2009-2012) Rob joins us after a PhD in Sport and Exercise Sciences and was heavily involved in pursuing the use of TMS to manipulate motor learning. He has use meta-analysis to establish PMd as a core area activated during motor learning imaging experiments, and has been using rTMS over cerebellum and motor cortex to manipulate slow and fast motor learning processes. He left in late 2012 to join Pablo Celnik's laboratory in Johns Hopkins, Baltimore.
Job Titles:
- Student, Lancaster University, 2008 - 2010 )
Job Titles:
- Co - Supervision With Joe Galea )
Job Titles:
- Computer Officer, 2005 - 2007 ) Now Lecturer at North East Wales Institute of Higher Education ( NEWI )