Rory Spanton
Profiles

Rory Spanton

Teaching and Support Assistant

School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)

Biography

Biography

Qualifications

PhD Psychology, University of Plymouth (2020 - Present)

Research Assistant, University of Plymouth (2019 - 2020)

BSc (Hons) Psychology, University of Plymouth (2015 - 2019)

Professional membership

Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Postgraduate Member, 2021 - Present

Society for Mathematical Psychology Postgraduate Member, 2022 - Present

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching interests

My main teaching interests involve research methods and statistics, topics in cognitive psychology, and R programming.

Current Teaching

PSYC753: Data Fluency: Processing, Visualising and Analysing Data for Reproducible Research

Research

Research

Research interests

I research human memory and cognition using behavioural experiments and mathematical modelling. My PhD investigates the links between explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) memory. I’m also interested in how mathematical models represent variability in memory - why we remember some things better than others - and the use of formal models and machine learning in cognitive science more generally.

Publications

Publications

Key publications

Key publications are highlighted

Journals
Articles
Spanton R & Berry C (2022) 'Does variability in recognition memory scale with mean memory strength or encoding variability in the UVSD model?' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , DOI Open access
Spanton RW & Berry CJ (2020) 'The unequal variance signal-detection model of recognition memory: Investigating the encoding variability hypothesis' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 73, (8) 1242-1260 , DOI Open access
Personal

Personal

Reports & invited lectures

    Spanton, R. W. (2021). Measuring trustworthiness or automating physiognomy? Considerations
for responsible machine learning in science. Talk presented (online) at Radboud University, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands.

   Spanton, R. W. (2022). Measuring trustworthiness or automating physiognomy? Considerations
for responsible machine learning in science. Talk presented (in person) at Radboud University, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands.


Conferences organised

13th Annual School of Psychology Conference, June 2021, University of Plymouth, UK.

Other academic activities

Alongside my research, I’m the lead organiser of Plymouth ReproducibiliTea. Here, I lead discussions about open science, rigorous methods, and fair and inclusive research culture.

Links

Personal website: www.roryspanton.com