Dr Nerissa Ho

Lecturer in Psychology

Qualifications

Education

• PhD in Psychology (neuropsychology), The University of Hong Kong
• PGCert in Psychology, The University of Hong Kong
• MBA (business administration), The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• BSc (computer science) , The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Professional Experience

• 2018-20, Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of York
• 2016-18, Lecturer, Community College of City University, Hong Kong
• 2015-16, Research Associate / Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong

Teaching interests

• PSYC002 The Psychology of Everyday Experience
  

• PSYC003 Psychological Influences on Health and Behaviour

• PSYC415 Topics in Psychology (Neuroscience)

• PSYC604 Current Topics in Psychology

• PSYC605 Research Project

• PSYC606 Applications of Psychological Theory

• PSYC707 MSc Research Project

• PSYC775 Foundations and Applications of Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation

• PSYC783 Applied Clinical Research

• PSYC785 Neuroscience Project

Research interests

I am interested in exploring the structural and functional architecture of the human brain. In particular, I seek to understand the brain’s architecture as reflected by our ongoing experiences and its implications to our cognitive performance and emotional well-being.

My research is founded on studies examining the neurocognitive mechanisms of mind-wandering and functions of the default mode network, a large scale brain network best known to be engaged in self-generated thoughts that are decoupled from the current environment and ongoing tasks. This research interest is developed from my early studies on alexithymia, a condition related to the lack of self-emotional awareness, and subsequent studies of the self-relevance effect and its influences on decisional processing using a social-cognitive perspective.

The overarching objective of my work is to better understand the neurocognitive underpinnings of our thought patterns, how they impact our cognitive and emotional experiences, and how to translate these basic science discovery into applications in the clinical and ageing domains.

Grants & contracts

BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants SRG 2020-21 Round (£10,000) “The wandertron: an intelligent protocol for deriving representative aspects of thought for characterizing ongoing experiences under different task contexts”