Psychology research hero
Psychology experiments in the BabyLab
 

Research strands

 

Research and impact

Research Impact

Changing understanding and practice in anaesthesia
Led by Jackie Andrade this research focuses on developing strategies for the prevention and management of accidental awareness during general anaesthesia.

Led by Judy Edworthy this research focuses on reducing sensory overload on clinicians due to the excessive number of alarms

Led by Helen Lloyd this research focuses on developing models and approaches for people with multiple long-term conditions.

Latest publications

Some recent papers published by the School of Psychology

  • Nguyen D, Fitzpatrick N & Floccia C 2024 'Adapting language development research paradigms to online testing: Data from preferential looking, word learning and vocabulary assessment in toddlers' Journal of Child Language Open access
  • Kopp K, Kanngiesser P, Brügger RK, Daum MM, Gampe A, Köster M, van Schaik CP, Liebal K & Burkart JM 2024 'The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: Towards a conceptual framework for comparative research' Animal Cognition
  • Ho V, Berman AH, Andrade J, Kavanagh DJ, Branche SL, May J, Philson CS & Blumstein DT 2024 'Assessing immediate emotions in the Theory of Planned Behavior can substantially contribute to increases in pro-environmental behavior' Frontiers in Climate Publisher Site , DOI Open access
  • Bohn M, da Silva Vieira WF, Giner Torréns M, Kärtner J, Itakura S, Cavalcante L, Haun D, Köster M & Kanngiesser P 2024 'Mealtime conversations between parents and their 2-year-old children in five cultural contexts' Developmental Psychology
  • Gatersleben B, White E, Wyles KJ, Golding SE, Murrell G, Scarles C, Xu T, Brockett BFT & Willis C 2024 'Everyday places to get away – Lessons learned from Covid-19 lockdowns' Landscape and Urban Planning 246, Publisher Site , DOI Open access
  • Smith A 2024 'Virtual reality and spatial cognition: Bridging the epistemic gap between laboratory and real-world insights' Science and Education Open access
  • Salo S, Harries C, Riddoch MJ & Smith A 2024 'Visuospatial memory in apraxia: Exploring quantitative drawing metrics to assess the representation of local and global information' Memory & Cognition , DOI Open access
  • Ji JL, Basanovic J & MacLeod C 2024 'Author Correction: Social activity promotes resilience against loneliness in depressed individuals: a study over 14 days of physical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia' Scientific Reports 14, (1) Publisher Site , DOI
  • Stehl P, White MP, Vitale V, Pahl S, Elliott LR, Fian L & van den Bosch M 2024 'From childhood blue space exposure to adult environmentalism: The role of nature connectedness and nature contact' Journal of Environmental Psychology 93, 102225-102225 , DOI
  • Aung T, Hill AK, Hlay JK, Hess C, Hess M, Johnson J, Doll L, Carlson SM, Magdinec C & G-Santoyo I 2024 'Effects of Voice Pitch on Social Perceptions Vary With Relational Mobility and Homicide Rate' Psychological Science Publisher Site , DOI
  • Longman CS, Milton F & Wills AJ 2024 'Transfer of strategic task components across unique tasks that share some common structures' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , DOI
  • Kharko A, Blease C, Johansen M, Moen A, Scandurra I, McMillan B & Hägglund M 2024 'Mapping Patients’ Online Record Access Worldwide: Preliminary Results from an International Survey of Healthcare Experts' MedInfo 2023 Publisher Site Open access
  • Bärkås A, Kharko A, Åhlfeldt R-M & Hägglund M 2024 'Patients’ Experiences of Demanded Access to Online Health Records' , DOI
  • Pazhoohi F, Afhami R, Chegeni R, Dubrov D, Galasinska K, Garza R, Moharrampour NG, Grigoryev D, Kowal M & Pallesen S 2024 'Cross-Cultural Preferences for Women’s Waist to Hip Ratio and Men’s Shoulder to Hip Ratio: Data From Iran, Norway, Poland, and Russia' Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology , DOI Open access
  • DeLecce T, Pazhoohi F, Szala A & Shackelford TK 2024 'Extreme metal guitar skill: A case of male–male status seeking, mate attraction, or byproduct?' Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 18, (1) 54-66 , DOI
  • Fian L, White MP, Arnberger A, Thaler T, Heske A & Pahl S 2024 'Nature visits, but not residential greenness, are associated with reduced income-related inequalities in subjective well-being' Health & Place 85, 103175-103175 , DOI
  • Spicer SG, Close J, Nicklin LL, Uther M, Whalley B, Fullwood C, Parke J, Lloyd J & Lloyd H 2024 'Exploring the relationships between psychological variables and loot box engagement, part 2: exploratory analyses of complex relationships' Royal Society Open Science 11, (1) , DOI Open access
  • Ji JL, Salemink E & Teachman BA 2024 'Association between interpretation flexibility and emotional health in an anxious sample: The challenge of measuring flexible adoption of multiple perspectives' Journal of Experimental Psychopathology 15, (1) , DOI Open access
  • Blease CR, Kharko A, Dong Z, Jones RB, Davidge G, Hagglund M, Turner A, DesRoches C & McMillan B 2024 'Experiences and opinions of general practitioners with patient online record access: an online survey in England' BMJ Open 14, (1) e078158-e078158 Publisher Site , DOI
  • Dhanda A, Andrade J, Allende H, Allgar V, Bailey M, Callaghan L, Cocking L, Goodwin E, Hawton A & Hayward C 2024 'Mental Imagery to Reduce Alcohol-related harm in patients with alcohol use disorder and alcohol-related liver damaGE: the MIRAGE randomised pilot trial results' BMJ Open Gastroenterology 11, (1) , DOI Open access
 

Open Science Strategy

This strategy commits the School of Psychology to three key open science goals by 2021. The first is preregistration of all research that will be published. The second is open access to all research publications. The third is open access to the raw data, stimuli, materials, and analysis pipelines of all published papers (except where so doing would cause insurmountable ethical or privacy issues). Four members of staff are signatories to the Peer Reviewers' Openness Initiative (Bach, Walsh, Whalley, Wills), which seeks to use peer review as a lever to improve open science practices. Wills is a Trustee of the Nurture Science Publishing Group, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of affordable open-access publication in the context of rigorous, reproducibility-focused peer review.

 

Facilities and labs

Brain Research & Imaging Centre

The Brain Research & Imaging Centre (BRIC), the most advanced multi-modal brain imaging facility in the South West, will provide the sea-change to enhance the quality of our research in human neuroscience.

With seven cutting-edge human research laboratories, BRIC will include an MRI suite with the most advanced 3-Tesla scanner in the region. It will critically advance our enquiry toward the most advanced brain research, improved radiological diagnostics and better patient care.

Find out more about the facility

BRIC building development, December 2020

Neuroscience facilities

Located on our main city-centre campus, these facilities are ideally placed for large-sample studies of neurotypical individuals. The facilities comprise three eye-tracking labs, three 128-channel EEG labs (one suitable for infant participants), a Neural Modulation laboratory, a functional Near Infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) lab, and a data analysis suite. The Neural Modulation laboratory provides facilities for singlepulse and rapid TMS, and tDCS, combined with 64-channel EEG recording and 3D scalp surface and electrode digitisation.

Babylab

The Babylab provides facilities that are essential to the developmental component of our Experimental Psychology research. Babylab provides excellent, dedicated facilities for infant testing including a family-friendly reception space, two observation rooms, and six individual sound-attenuating booths, with a Tobii 300 Hz system and a head-turn preference setting.

Learn more about the Babylab

Dedicated behavioural testing facilities

A total of 26 purpose-built testing rooms, most of them multi-seat. This facility supports much of the core work of Experimental Psychology group. There are also two dedicated 'soft labs': comfortable, relaxing spaces more conducive to the study of human interaction and counselling than standard labs. We also have three research-dedicated state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Labs.

Specialist equipment

Multichannel EMG systems, respiratory belts, skin thermometers, GSR devices, and pulse meters. There are also movement-measurement devices, including force transducers, accelerometers and laser displacement meters, and somatosensory and pain research devices that enable peripheral percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.

Non-human animal research

In the School of Biological and Marine Sciences there are eight dedicated observation labs, including two specialist temperature-controlled facilities suitable for aquatic animals. All labs are set up for video recording and remote logging with Noldus observer. Our Animal Behaviour researchers also make regular use of shared resources in the School of Biological and Marine Sciences, including animal housing, Home Office licensed space, plus physiology and molecular biology labs. Our research on sustainability is substantially facilitated by the presence of the Plymouth Marine Institute - the first and largest such institute in the UK.

Virtual reality research

Our team are conducting research into virtual reality, working on topics including:

  • Foundations of search and navigation
  • Connecting people with the ocean
  • Using augmented reality to deliver an imagery-based intervention for behaviour change

Discover more about our latest virtual reality research.

 

Our researchers