Dr Alison Bacon
Profiles

Dr Alison Bacon

Lecturer in Psychology

School of Psychology (Faculty of Health & Human Sciences)

Role

Lecturer in Psychology

Msc Psychology programme lead
 

Qualifications

BSc Psychology (First Class): 2000
Post-graduate Diploma in Psychological Research Methods (Distinction): 2001
PhD: Thesis title: "Individual Differences and Strategies for Human Reasoning": 2003
 

Professional membership

Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society (Chartered Psychologist)

Member of BPS Divisions of Forensic and Social Psychology
Member of British Society for the Psychology of Individual Differences (BSPID)
Member of International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID)
Fellow of UK Higher Education Academy

Research interests

My principle research interests concern individual differences and the social and cognitive implications of these in everyday life. Personality, crime and forensic psychology, mental representations, imagery & creativity, Emotional intelligence. Risk-taking. Health. Dyslexia. Experience of Higher Education, particularly in non-traditional students. I am a member of the university Institute for Research in Crime, Justice and Society.

Grants & contracts

ESRC. £99, 798. April 2008 - August 2009. Award no. RES000222815. Bacon A.M. & Parmentier, F.B.R.  How do people with dyslexia remember visuo-spatial information?

ESRC. £99,910. Oct 2006 - March 2008. Award no. RES000221965. Bacon, A.M. & Handley, S.J. Dyslexia and the impact of strategy preference on reasoning.

ESRC, £46,000. September 2005 to August 2006. Award no. RES000221293. Evans, J., Bacon, A. &. Handley, S. An investigation of dual processes in conditional reasoning.


ESRC funded PhD studentship, October 2000-September 2003. Award no. R42200034033.Bacon, A.M. Individual Differences and Strategies for Human Reasoning.

Research groups

  • Centre for Research in Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (CBCB)
  • Cognition


Bond, B., Bacon, A.M. & Wright, J. (in press). What helps in self-help? A qualitative exploration of interactions within a Borderline Personality Disorder self-help group. Journal of Mental Health. 

Bacon, A.M. & Corr, P.J. (2017). Motivating emotional intelligence: a reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) perspective. Motivation & Emotion, 41(2), 254-264.  

Bacon, A.M. & Regan, L. (2016). Manipulative emotional behaviour and delinquency: sex differences and links with emotional intelligence. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, 27(3), 331-348. 

Thompson, C., Bacon, A.M. & Auburn, T. (2015). Dyslexic identities in online forum postings. Disability and Society, 30(9),1328-1344. 

Osborne, G. & Bacon, A.M. (2015). The working life of a medium: a qualitative examination of mediumship as a support service for the bereaved.  Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 18(4), 286-298.

Bacon, A.M.,Burak, H. & Rann, J. (2014). Sex differences in the relationship between sensation seeking, trait emotional intelligence and delinquent behaviour. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 25, 673-683.

Bacon, A.M.& Handley, S.J. (2014). Reasoning and Dyslexia: is Visual Memory aCompensatory Resource? Dyslexia, 20, 330-345.

Bacon, A.M., Walsh, C.E. & Martin, L. (2013). Personality and counterfactual thinking. Personality & Individual Differences, 54(4), 469-473.

Bacon, A.M., Parmentier, F.B.R. & Barr. P. (2013). Visuospatial memory in dyslexia: evidence for strategic deficits. Memory, 21(2), 189-209.

Bacon, A.M. & Bennett, S. (2013). Dyslexia in Higher Education: the decision to study art. European Journal of Special Needs Education. 28(1), 19-32. 


Bacon, A.M. & Handley, S.J. (2010). Dyslexia & reasoning: the importance of visual processes. British Journal of Psychology, 101, 433-452.

Bacon, A.M. & Handley, S.J. (2010). Dyslexia, reasoning and the importance of visual-spatial processes. In N. Alexander-Passe (Ed.). Dyslexia and Creativity: Investigations from Differing Perspectives (pp. 25-49). New York: Nova..

Evans, J. St. B.T., Handley, S.J. & Bacon, A.M. (2009). Reasoning under time pressure: A study of causal conditional inference. Experimental Psychology, 56(2), 77-83.

Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J., Dennis I. & Newstead, S.E. (2008). Reasoning strategies: the role of working memory and verbal-spatial ability. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20(6), 1065 - 1086.

Elqayam, S., Handley, S.J., Evans, J.St.B.T., and Bacon, A.M. (2008). On some limits of hypothetical thinking. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.61(5), 784-808.

Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J. and McDonald, E.L. (2007). Reasoning and dyslexia: a spatial strategy may impede reasoning with visually rich information. British Journal of Psychology, 98(1), 79-92.

Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J. and Newstead, S.E. (2005). Verbal and spatial strategies in reasoning. In Roberts, M. and Newton, E. (Eds.). Methods of Thought: Individual Differences in Reasoning Strategies (pp. 81-105). Hove: Psychology Press. 


Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J. and Newstead, S.E. (2003). Individual differences in strategies for syllogistic reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 9(2), 133-168.

Coventry, K. R., Cangelosi, A., Rajapakse, R., Bacon, A., Newstead, S., Joyce, D. & Richards, L. V. (2005). Spatial prepositions and vague quantifiers: Implementing the functional geometric framework. In C. Freksa, B. Knauff & B. Krieg-Bruckner & B. Nebel (Eds.), Spatial Cognition, Volume IV. Reasoning, Action and Interaction, pp 98-110. Lecture notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag.

Rajapakse R.K., Cangelosi A., Coventry K.R, Newstead S., Bacon A. (2005), Connectionist modeling of linguistic quantifiers. In W. Duch, J. Kacprzyk, E. Oja & S. Zadrozny (Eds.) Artificial Neural Networks: Formal Models and Their Applications - ICANN 2005. 15th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (Part II) (LNCS 3697).Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 679-684.

Rajapakse R.K., Cangelosi A., Coventry K., Newstead S. and Bacon A. (2005). Grounding linguistic quantifiers in perception: Experiments on numerosity judgments. 2nd Language & Technology Conference: Human Language Technologies as a Challenge for Computer Science and Linguistics. April 21-23, 2005, Poznañ, Poland

Cangelosi A., K. Coventry, R. Rajapakse, D. Joyce, Bacon, A., L. Richards, S. Newstead (2005), Grounding language in perception: A connectionist model of spatial terms and vague quantifiers. In A. Cangelosi, G. Bugmann & R. Borisyuk (Eds.), Modelling Language, Cognition and Action: Proceedings of the 9th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop. Singapore: World Scientific. pp. 47-56

Conference Presentations

Bacon, A.M. & Lenton-Maughan. Trait emotional intelligence profiles of antisocial males and fermales. BPS Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference, Bristol 13-15 June 2017. 

Bacon, A.M. No Regrets: Psychopathy and counterfactual thinking. BSPID Annual Conference, 21 April 2017.

Colquhoun, B., Lord, A. & Bacon, A.M. A qualitative  evaluation of recovery processes experienced by menrally disordered sex-offenders. Broadmoor Hospital Clinical practice forum 10th Annual Conference, 1 July, 2016. 

Bacon, A.M. (2016). Emotional intelligence and delinquent behaviour. BPS Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference, Brighton, 14-16 June 2016. 

Bacon, A.M. & Lenton-Maughan, L. (2016). The emotional intelligence profile of male and female delinquents. BSPID Annual Conference, Nottingham Trent University, April 2016.

Bacon, A.M. (2014). BSPID Annual Conference, City University, London, April 2014. 

Bacon, A.M. & Parmentier, F. (2009). Dyslexia and Visual-Spatial Memory. BPS Cognitive Psychology Section Annual Conference, Keele: 1-3 September 2009.

Bacon, A.M. & Handley, S.J. (2008). Dyslexia & Reasoning: the Role of Visual Memory. Sixth International Conference on Thinking: Venice, 21-23 August 2008

Bacon, A.M. & Handley, S.J. (2007). Dyslexia and the role of visual imagery in reasoning. BPS Cognitive Psychology Section XXIV Annual Conference, Aberdeen, 20-22 August 2007.

Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J. and Newstead, S.E. (2004). Verbal and Spatial Strategies for Reasoning. Fifth International Conference on Thinking, Leuven, 22-24 July 2004.

Bacon, A.M., Handley, S.J. and Newstead, S.E. (2002). Individual differences in strategies for human reasoning. BPS Cognitive Psychology Section XVII Annual Conference, Kent, 9-11 September 2002.

Bacon, A.M. (2000). Individual differences in formal and informal human reasoning. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Winchester, 9-11 April 2000.

Coventry K.R., Cangelosi A., Newstead S., Bacon A., Rajapakse R. (2005), Grounding natural language quantifiers in visual attention. XXVII Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Stresa.